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Lot Essay
“In the representation of harbor views [Boudin] has no rival. His skies are a joy to see and his vessels always painted with inimitable skill and perfect knowledge. In his pictures there is a [good] deal of movement. One feels the bustle of hurrying out of port, or into it. The vessels sway with wind and tide, and their rigging is drawn with fascinating truth and naiveté” (P.C. Sutton, Boudin: Impressionist Marine Paintings, exh. cat., Peabody Museum of Salem, 1991, p. 16). By the turn of the century, the artist’s sweeping coastal views were widely exhibited and receiving unanimous praise.
The present work depicts Camaret, a fishing port in Brittany’s Finistère region which Boudin frequented between 1870 and 1873. His oeuvre primarily depicts seascapes and coastal towns, paying homage to his father—himself a ship’s captain—and Boudin’s upbringing in Honfleur. The Normandy coast, with its ever-changing skies and ephemeral beams of light, informed the rich atmospheres that built Boudin’s reputation. The formidable landscapist Camille Corot crowned Boudin as “the king of skies,” a testament to his free brushwork and uninhibited observation of contemporary maritime life and its environs. While Boudin painted scores of scenes set in Brittany between 1872 and 1873, the present work underlines the impression Camaret made on him in particular. In 1874 when a group of thirty artists—would-be legends Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley and Camille Pissarro among them—invited Boudin to the first ever Impressionist exhibition, a Finistère painting was among the three works chosen to represent the artist (J. Selz, Eugène Boudin, Naefels, 1982, p. 64).
Boudin did not participate in the seven Impressionist exhibitions between 1874 and 1886. While many of his works shared Impressionist brushwork and color, his penchant for browns and varying shades of grey differed greatly from the Impressionist palette. While the Impressionists found their muses in Paris, Boudin remained faithful to the coasts that transfixed his spirit with their boats, sea merchants, ports and endless skies.
The present work depicts Camaret, a fishing port in Brittany’s Finistère region which Boudin frequented between 1870 and 1873. His oeuvre primarily depicts seascapes and coastal towns, paying homage to his father—himself a ship’s captain—and Boudin’s upbringing in Honfleur. The Normandy coast, with its ever-changing skies and ephemeral beams of light, informed the rich atmospheres that built Boudin’s reputation. The formidable landscapist Camille Corot crowned Boudin as “the king of skies,” a testament to his free brushwork and uninhibited observation of contemporary maritime life and its environs. While Boudin painted scores of scenes set in Brittany between 1872 and 1873, the present work underlines the impression Camaret made on him in particular. In 1874 when a group of thirty artists—would-be legends Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley and Camille Pissarro among them—invited Boudin to the first ever Impressionist exhibition, a Finistère painting was among the three works chosen to represent the artist (J. Selz, Eugène Boudin, Naefels, 1982, p. 64).
Boudin did not participate in the seven Impressionist exhibitions between 1874 and 1886. While many of his works shared Impressionist brushwork and color, his penchant for browns and varying shades of grey differed greatly from the Impressionist palette. While the Impressionists found their muses in Paris, Boudin remained faithful to the coasts that transfixed his spirit with their boats, sea merchants, ports and endless skies.