This subtle landscape of a low-tide on the Opal Coast reveals the capacity of its author Eugène Boudin for capturing passing impressions and meteorological beauty.
Nicknamed the “king of skies” by Camille Corot, the artist particularly loved the effects of these vast changing skies which he enriched with volutes, puffs of smoke, patches of steam and diffused transparencies. As you can see, Boudin played with the ductility of the paste and used different types of brushstrokes and fine incisions which delicately modelled the light.
We can see the influence of 17th-century Northern painting in his work paralleled with a desire to express the impalpable effects of wind and light through the medium of landscape. This naturalist and poetic vision, capturing the moment, heralded the way for Impressionism.