The Pardon of Sainte-Anne-la-Palud

Boudin is remembered for beaches and huge skies, so a churchgoing crowd is a surprise from him. In 1857 he travelled into Brittany and stood among the pilgrims at the Pardon of Sainte-Anne-la-Palud, the biggest religious festival in that corner of Finistère. Each August the faithful gather near the bay of Douarnenez for an open-air Mass and a procession honouring Saint Anne, the mother of the Virgin. From that day Boudin took the subject of his first painting accepted at the Paris Salon, in 1859, and the City of Le Havre bought that canvas the next year for 500 francs. Even here he keeps the whole event out on the open dunes rather than inside a church, among the sand and the wide coastal light he would paint for the rest of his life.