Beach at Trouville

Eugène Boudin

National Gallery of Art

Eight men, women, and children stand or sit in straight-backed, wooden chairs gathered along a sandy beach near low, gently breaking waves with sailboats floating in the ocean beyond in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is loosely painted throughout, making much of the detail indistinct. Most of the people sit with their backs to us but the faces we can see suggest they have light skin. The people gather in a loose crowd that spans the left half of the composition, except for one woman wearing white and holding a blue parasol who sits to the right. The women wear long dresses with full skirts in shades of black, aquamarine or arctic blue, or snowy white. They all wear straw-colored hats with royal-blue bands. The three men also wear hats and suits in black or pecan brown. Two women, in addition to the one sitting alone, hold up blue parasols. One child wears a white dress and hat, and the other wears shades of blue and a straw hat with a red band. A white dog with brown spots stands on our side of the chairs near a woman and the child wearing white. One tall, wooden pole with a blue banner rises high above the crowd near the left edge of the composition, and another with a red pennant is farther back to the right. Between the group and the water, a person rides a brown horse, several women walk, and two children play in the sand. A rowboat is near the breaking waves and five white sailboats line the horizon, which comes about a quarter of the way up this painting. A steamship leaves a line of muted lilac-purple smoke in the deep distance to the right. A blanket of pale gray clouds cover much of the bright blue sky. The artist signed the lower right corner, “E. Boudin.”