Cleveland Museum of Art

The Beach at Deauville

Eugène Boudin

Date

1864

Medium

oil on wood panel

Culture

France, 19th century

Department

Modern European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

During the 1860s, Boudin executed many paintings and watercolors representing well-to-do tourists and vacationers enjoying seaside resorts in Normandy, principally Trouville and Deauville. In this scene, the informally posed figures suggest a sense of relaxation and intimacy. The overturned chair in the foreground underscores the impression of a casually observed moment, as though a sea breeze or a quick departure by its former occupant has upended it. The majority of Boudin's small oil paintings of beach scenes of the 1860s were executed on wood panel. After laying down a thin white ground, Boudin seems to have begun painting directly, not drawing or laying in guidelines for the forms. The result is a freshness and airiness appropriate to a windy day at the beach. Boudin evokes the feeling of wind by painting the fluttering blue dress, the beach walker leaning to the left, the whitecaps on the water, and the angle of the sails on the boat in the distance.

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