Plougastel, the Ferry Crossing

In 1873 there was no bridge from Plougastel across to Brest. People crossed the water by boat, and that is what the crowded rowing craft on the right of this picture is doing. Boudin gave it almost none of the canvas. The rocky shore and the cloud take nearly everything, which was his habit. He filled sketchbooks with skies alone, writing the wind direction and the hour in the margin beside each study. The spring after he painted this, at 49, he joined the first exhibition of the group that was promptly nicknamed the Impressionists, having spent 20 years by then pushing younger painters, Monet among them, to work outdoors in front of the thing itself.