The Beach at Tourgeville-les-Sablons

Date1893

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions50.8 x 74.3 cm

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineSir Hugh Lane Bequest, 1917, The National Gallery, London. In partnership with Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin.

Object number3235

DescriptionThis is a summer's day, indicated by groups of people walking or seated on a beech, some carrying parasols. In the sea to the left, yachts and steamers move towards the harbour, behind which a town is indicated by brush strokes of white on the green grassy hill. The sky is blue and filled with fleecy white clouds. This view is painted from Tourgéville-les-Sablons or Tourgéville-sur-Mer. The two jetties at the mouth of the river Touques (which form the entrance to the harbour of Trouville-Deauville) can be seen in the central middle-distance. Boudin painted the jetties from another angle in 'The Entrance to Trouville Harbour'.

Boudin's devotion to studies made out of doors and his meticulous observations from nature strongly influenced the Impressionists, particularly the young Claude Monet who said 'If I have become a painter I owe it to Eugène Boudin'. In his sketch books he frequently scribbled notes to himself about the direction of the breeze, the time of day and the date.

EUGÈNE BOUDIN
b. Honfleur 1824 d. Deauville 1898

The Beach at Tourgéville-les-Sablons 1893

Oil on canvas, 50.8 x 74.3 cm
Lane Bequest 1917. This is one of the group of 39 paintings shared with the National Gallery London.

Eugène Boudin owned a picture framing business in Le Havre. He received little formal training but influenced by the work of contemporaries like Corot, he began to paint. Early in his career he painted genre or everyday scenes but he is most famous for his paintings of the beaches of Brittany and Normandy. His devotion to studies made out of doors and his meticulous observations from nature strongly influenced the Impressionists, particularly the young Claude Monet who said "If I have become a painter I owe it to Eugène Boudin".
Boudin exhibited with the Impressionists in 1874, though he never really shared their concern with rich colours or broken brushwork. In his sketch books he frequently scribbled notes to himself about the direction of the breeze, the time of day and the date and in this, as in many of his other beach scenes, the sand, sea and sky dominate the painting.

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