The Beach at Trouville

The railway reached Trouville in 1863, and within a generation the Normandy beach filled each summer with Parisians who had no business at the sea beyond being there. Boudin had grown up across the estuary in Honfleur, the son of a harbour pilot, and he had been painting those holiday crowds since 1862; this panel is from 1884, more than 20 years into the subject. It is tiny, about 14 by 23 centimetres, a board he could hold in one hand and finish outdoors in a sitting. Small groups sit and talk in their day clothes, a few have walked down to look at the boats in the bay, and the greater part of the picture is sky. He noted the hour and the weather on many of his sky studies, and kept the habit up to his last years.