Berck, Beach Scene

Eugène Boudin’s exceptional ability to observe and record the fleeting effects of nature earned him a place as a precursor of the Impressionists. Though in palette and technique he remained within the tradition pioneered by Corot, Boudin’s broad brushwork, exclusion of detail, and use of modern themes, were a seminal influence on the younger generation. Claude Monet credited him as his mentor; repeatedly declaring “I owe everything to Boudin.” As a young man Boudin made the acquaintance of several painters of the Romantic and Barbizon schools in his stationer’s shop in Le Havre. Millet corrected his early sketches. Corot, Courbet, and Daubigny would later offer valuable advice. In 1847, when he decided to devote himself to painting, his sojourns to Paris afforded an opportunity to study the Dutch seventeenth-century masters. Perhaps the most fruitful exchange, however, was with Johann Barthold Jongkind, who shared Boudin’s interest in the ever-changing fluctuations of light, and an all-enveloping atmospheric effect. The two worked together in 1862.The son of a sailor, Boudin was drawn to representations of water, the ports, beaches, and rivers of his native Normandy in particular. Three decades of struggle would ensue, however, before these works would find a measure of success with the public in the 1880s. Modern beach scenes, a genre that he invented, were among his most appreciated subjects. In these paintings, Boudin presented a portrait of contemporary, fashionable society and their vacation amusements. During the summer of 1870, Boudin traveled along the northern coast of France, stopping to work in the seaside town of Berck. In his several subsequent visits there, principally in 1875 and 1881–1882 he worked on beach scenes that were substantially different from those done in Trouville and Deauville depicting the elegant and the wealthy. Here the people on the beaches were the local fisherfolk, at work or at rest. Berck: Beach Scene is an unusual combination of the elite in their fancy hats and crinolines, sharing the beach with local inhabitants. The fashionable inhabit the foreground space, while the local women and their cattle are in the middleground. In spite of the rich number of figures, two thirds of the painting is devoted to the transient sky. The sand is enlivened by a multitude of beige tones applied in small touches. On the thin strip of sea that separates the land and sky on the right, ships are on the horizon, their sails echoing the flaps of the large tent in the foreground.