William Sartain, Group of Trees by the Wayside

William Sartain was a much-loved teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and a close friend of renowned Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins. As young men, Sartain and Eakins traveled to Paris together to study the works of the great masters. Groups of Trees by the Wayside exemplifies the drama and emotive poetry of Sartain's tonalist approach to landscape. Atmospheric expanses of earth and sky are created through a restricted color palette and rich modulations of light and dark. The impact is monumental.