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Beauty of Boudin
Title: Coast of Brittany, 1870
Artist: Eugène Boudin (French 1824-1898)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Permanent Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1983.1.11
Image Courtesy: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Eugène Boudin
The National Gallery of Art
Washington, DC
through August 5, 2007
Title: Beach Scene, 1862
Artist: Eugène Boudin (French 1824-1898)
Medium: Oil on Wood
Permanent Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1983.1.13
Image Courtesy: National Gallery of Art, Washington
French landscape painter Eugène Boudin has an exhibit of several of his works at Washington's National Gallery. The exhibit was organized to
honor the 100th anniversary of the birth of Paul Mellon, who was the Gallery's founding president and
the benefactor largely responsible for its Boudin collection, which is one of
the largest and most distinguished in the United States.
Camille Corot once called Boudin the King of the Skies. Boudin influenced many of the impressionist painters including Claude Monet.
Title: Two Ladies Seated and a Couple Walking on the Beach, c. 1866
Artist: Eugène Boudin (French 1824-1898)
Medium: Watercolor and Graphite
Permanent Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.77
Image Courtesy: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
"The works gathered in this exhibition add up to something timeless in their
beauty: the play of light on water and clouds, carefully observed over the
course of a lifetime. It is perhaps this very duality, of momentary sensation
and timeless beauty that made Boudin such a natural addition to the collection
of Paul Mellon," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. "In
Mr. Mellon's own words, 'It seems to me that art makes one feel the essence of
something, turning the ordinary everyday object or scene into a universal
one.'"
Boudin belonged to the group of realists and naturalists who preceded
impressionists. The artist was more popular with other artists than the
general public. His nuanced renditions of light and atmosphere, along with the freshness found
in his use of colors and his attention to detail earned admiration from Edouard Manet, Gustave Courbet, and Camille Corot.
Boudin liked to work en plein air, a practice that Monet followed. Monet invited Boudin to join the impressionists at their
first exhibition in 1874.
Eugène Boudin
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC:
through August 25, 2007
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