Figures on the Beach

Eugène Boudin

National Gallery of Art

Twenty men, women, and children sit, stand, or stroll along a sandy beach beneath a bright, cloud-filled sky in this horizontal landscape painting. The people are small in scale within the landscape, taking up about a quarter of the canvas's height. The scene is loosely painted so many of the facial features are indistinct, but the faces we can see appear to have pale skin. Across a narrow band of sand, the women wear dresses with long sleeves, tight bodices, and ankle-length skirts in shades of baby blue, smoke gray, teal green, crimson red, gray, or tan. Three women hold parasols in shades of charcoal gray, golden yellow, or teal green. The men wear suits with long tails and rounded hats. About half the people sit in wooden chairs, and others gather in small groups. One child plays in the sand near a pair of women to the left, and another pair play on their own to the right near an empty chair. A fourth child holds the hand of a woman, and a white dog with brown spots runs across the sand closer to us. A rowboat with five people is in the water just off the beach, and a steamboat burps gray smoke to the left on the horizon, which comes less than a quarter of the way up the composition. The artist signed the painting in the lower left corner, “E. Boudin.”