European Art and Old Masters

Literature Robert Schmit, Eugène Boudin 1824-1898, Galerie Schmit, Paris, 1973, Vol. II, no. 1285, p. 9 (illustrated). Note Boudin was born in Honfleur in 1824 to a harbor captain, whom the artist would often accompany during his youth as a cabin boy. That Boudin would go on to capture the majesty of the sea so exquisitely and so extensively would therefore only seem natural. However, he did not begin painting seriously until his early twenties, when the town of Le Havre awarded him with a three year scholarship, which prompted him to move to Paris and study there. It was the Dutch painter Johan Jongkind (1819-1891) who first encouraged Boudin to work outdoors, en plein air, a direct departure from the conventional, studio-based mode of the time, and a move that would foreshadow the Impressionist movement. Boudin's skill at capturing the changing effects of light on the water and the sky became the hallmark of his work, leading the artist Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot to famously crown him "le roi des ciels" (the king of the skies). Boudin painted extensively along the northern coast of France, stretching from Brittany to Pas-de-Calais. Étaples was an important stop among the Northern French seasides, just a few miles away from Berck, nestled between the English Channel and the tip of the river Authie. The present work depicts the wide, flat expanse of the beach at low tide, the sand blending into what is left of the sea, which itself blends into the pastel-colored sky. A couple of fishermen are seen strolling on the beach, looking for their next catch while several sailboats are gently rocking on the sand as the water recedes. The wide, confident brushstrokes in the clouds are repeated in the drawn trails of the beach itself, where multiple hues of purple, yellow, orange and pink are shown mirroring. Like most of Boudin's work, the present piece employs a strong linear perspective, approaching his subject straight on, perpendicular to the scene, so as to make sure the viewer is entirely absorbed in the scene.