Tarring the Boat

Manet spent the summer of 1873 with his family at Berck-sur-Mer, a fishing village on the Channel coast known for its sea-air cures. The town had no harbour, so its flat-bottomed boats were simply run up onto a long stretch of open beach, and Manet painted the ordinary work that followed. Two men coat the hull of a beached boat with burning tar, sealing the overlapping planks to keep the sea out. He worked here in a darker range than was usual for him, all browns and blacks and dull sky, close to the fishermen's own materials. A thin curl of smoke rises off the hot tar where the men are working along the side of the boat.