Along the Ofanto river

Along the Ofanto River was painted in 1870, shortly after De Nittis returned to his native Apulia following years in Naples and Florence. The Ofanto is the principal river of Apulia, rising in the southern Apennines and flowing through the Tavoliere delle Puglie plains before entering the Adriatic near Barletta — the artist's hometown. This return to a landscape of deep personal significance, painted just one year before De Nittis's definitive move to Paris, makes the work a document of personal geographical memory. The flat, sun-bleached Apulian landscape was very different from the mountains of central Italy and the grey skies of Paris he would come to know, and its particular quality of intense meridional light remained a reference point in his art. The Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis in Barletta holds the canvas among works documenting his Italian roots.

The river landscape is handled with plein-air directness inherited from the Macchiaioli, using broad flat areas of colour to capture the strong undifferentiated light of the Apulian landscape. The river's edge provides compositional structure within the characteristically flat valley terrain.