Boats on a Beach, Etretat

Gustave Courbet

National Gallery of Art

Four boats with low masts sit on a sandy beach next to rocky cliffs under a cloud-filled sky in this horizontal landscape painting. Three of the boats are clustered together near the center of the composition. The fourth is a short distance away to our left. The beach is painted with visible dabs and strokes of tan and cream white with gray shadows. The vertical cliffs are not much taller than the boats' masts and are painted in with smears and smudges of warm brown and black. The beach is dark with shoals where it meets the water beyond the boats. Two sailboats with white sails are on the water in the distance. Bands of parchment white, gray, and smoky lavender purple gather in the icy blue sky above the horizon, which comes about a quarter of the way up the composition. The artist signed the work in rust-red letters in the lower right corner, “G. Courbet.”