Eugène BOUDIN 1824-1898

Eugène Boudin, precursor of impressionism

“Three brush strokes from nature are worth more than two days at an easel”.

As the son of a sailor, his youth was spent in the mist and gusts of wind. Boudin was familiar with both financial and psychological misery until 1859, the year of his move to Honfleur. Dumas’ son bought his work. Courbet encouraged him.

“You are the only person who knows the sky.
We can imagine the season, the time of day and the wind”.

said Charles Baudelaire, about Eugène Boudin pastels

In 1860 Boudin began to paint beach scenes called crinolines, elegant relaxed-looking friezes where the refined chromatics stands out from a background of sea and sky, which was the source of his fame.

In 1880 Durand-Ruel purchased all of his work.

Boudin remained very attached to Normandy all his life. He was the painter par excellence of “wet suns”, “scrambled skies”, changing light, fugitive atmospheres, pearl grey and the lapping of ports and their large three-masted boats – infinite research themes.

Boudin is the uncontested master of marine atmospheres and meteorological wonders as Baudelaire said. His simmering touch exalted the values of sketching and suggestion, effects that the impressionists, particularly Monet who became his friend, would amplify.

“…if I became a painter, I owe it to Boudin”.

said Claude Monet

Finally, all of impressionism’s modernity is visible in Boudin’s work ten years before the movement appeared and was recognised by critics.