By the Sea

The sea has been a source of inspiration for generations of French artists. This exhibition, drawn from the Museum's extensive 19th-century collections and augmented by important loans from private collectors in the area, reveals a variety of approaches to the subject by French artists from the 1850s to the 1890s. Included are some 17 paintings by Boudin (1824-1898), shown together for the first time, as well as works by his contemporaries Jongkind, Corot, Courbet, and Manet, and the celebrated Impressionists such as Monet, who was a student of Boudin. The sea provided an inexhaustible source of subjects for the plein-air painters, whether they were recording activities along the coast, both recreational and those providing a livelihood, exploring their own emotional reaction to its turbulent waters, or using the motif to help define what it meant to be French.