Scène de plage à Trouville (1873)

Boudin, Eugène (1824-1898)

Scène de plage à Trouville (Beach Scene, Trouville)
1873
Oil on wood, 15.5 x 29.9 cm
National GalleryLondon

Boudin started off painting seascapes, but he found a niche in the 1860s producing small beach scenes. These showed well-to-do holidaymakers from Paris and further afield who arrived at the fast developing resorts of Trouville and Deauville to sample the health-giving benefits of seabathing and the vibrant social life. He produced a few hundred of these paintings, which have come to define his reputation, something he himself foresaw when he wrote: ‘I shall do something else, but I shall always be a painter of beach scenes.’

This painting is typical of Boudin’s many sketches of beaches in showing groups of people ranged along the beach in a frieze-like composition, the whites, reds and blues of their costumes standing out against the silvery greys of the sea and sky.

Two other paintings of holidaymakers on Trouville beach with the same title are in the National Gallery’s collection, as well as a much later scene of the empty beach in a gale. (NG)

See also:

• Trouville-sur-Mer (France)