Barques et Estacade

By 1894 the painters who owed Eugène Boudin their first lessons outdoors, Monet above all, whom he'd coaxed onto the Normandy sand as a teenager, were the famous ones. Boudin himself was 70, with four years left to live. In these last seasons on the coast around Trouville he let the picture dissolve almost to nothing. Sky and water are mixed from the same blues, lilacs and pinks until the horizon nearly disappears, and a single jetty closes off the rest. Look low on the canvas and the small bronze-green dashes are sails caught in the water. One of the boats is bringing fishermen back to shore, the one piece of ordinary business left in a scene he had almost turned into pure weather.