작품 상세

EUGÈNE BOUDIN , HONFLEUR, 1824 – DEAUVILLE, 1898 Dordrecht, The Maas Oil on canvas 45 x 65 cm Like a Dutch seascape, this landscape shows us a sky that seems to be the main subject, so much so that it takes a predominant place in the composition. Indeed, almost three quarters of the painting are devoted to the dappled sky with its vaporous clouds, so characteristic of Eugène Boudin. In perfect chromatic unity, they are diluted rather than reflected in the Meuse River below. On the horizon, only a thin strip of land separates them, which increases on each side according to the laws of perspective. If, on the right, a few trees evoke nature, on the left, the bank is more constructed, suggesting the outskirts of a port. It is this blocked horizon that allows us to understand that we are dealing with a river whose curves mask the mouth, even though it is nearby. The three masts looming on the horizon, like so many edges, bear witness to a maritime traffic that the foreground seemed to ignore. The size of the boat coming towards us contrasts with the harbour activity in the background. It allows us to evoke the place where the painter could have stood to create this landscape. This perfectly centred landscape assumes that the artist painted it on board a boat. This painting is reminiscent of the one painted two centuries earlier by the Dutch painter Albert Cuyp, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum. Beyond the predominance of the sky, it is also this centred composition, with the more discreet presence of a boat as an axis of symmetry in Boudin's work. It was during his travels in the Netherlands that Boudin became familiar with the masters of the Dutch Golden Age, whose works he had already been able to admire in the Louvre, notably another view of the Meuse at Dordrecht by Van Goyen. This Dutch sojourn was to be a very fertile source of inspiration for this plein air painter, who found in Batavian skies the atmosphere of his Normandy skies, with their faded tones. In 1859, he exhibited his first painting at the Salon where he was noticed by Baudelaire. He met Courbet, Jongkind and then Monet, whom he introduced to plein-air painting. As he gained notoriety, he devoted himself to more mundane subjects, accompanying the birth of the first seaside resorts, Deauville, Trouville but also Juan-les-Pins. In 1874, he took part in the first Impressionist exhibition at Nadar's. Beyond the scenes of daily life, sketched with vivacity and even picturesqueness, his landscapes are organised with precision according to the laws of perspective and according to a framing influenced by the nascent photography. The characters, secondary or even anecdotal, are inscribed in a perspectival space where the eye is invited to travel over vast expanses. But it is above all his treatment of light that will earn him the recognition of his peers, particularly for his skies. Corot, his elder, gave him the laudatory title of 'king of the skies', while Baudelaire awarded him the title of 'painter of meteorological beauties'. Signatur: Signed and dated at lower right