BOUDIN, Skies

Eugène BOUDIN (1824-1898), Sky, Setting Sun, Bushes in Foreground, ca. 1848-1853, oil on paper, 11 x 19.5 cm. © MuMa Le Havre / Florian Kleinefenn
Eugène BOUDIN (1824-1898)
Sky, Setting Sun, Bushes in Foreground
ca. 1848-1853
oil on paper
11 x 19.5 cm
© MuMa Le Havre / Florian Kleinefenn
HD image
While these oil studies were done in small format like his pastels, they differ slightly in several ways. The sky has almost always been the sole subject of the work. Boudin opted for a very high frame and the sea does not appear in the compositions. At most, the faint outline of a low horizon (dunes? shrubs or bushes? windmill?) can be seen in some of them. But more often than not, the clouds are the only motifs. At times, the subject becomes so fine or abstract that Boudin specified its meaning on the back of the work.
 
The main difference is in the execution. Boudin plays with the paintwork: sometimes he uses sweeping, energetic brushstrokes to apply fluid paint like a wash, sometimes he draws the paint out in long strokes or, just the opposite, uses pure colour with vigorous impasto. This thick paint is where he occasionally scrawled his "meteorological" observations with the tip of his brush handle.
One can sense the curiosity of an artist, who, in addition to his more significant production of pastels, endlessly searched and tested to paint the sky as the Dutch masters had done long before him.
 
A quote from Boudin's personal diary sheds remarkable light on this small group of sky studies: "Tuesday, December 3 [1856] To swim in the open sky. To achieve the tenderness of clouds. To suspend these masses in the distance, very far away in the grey mist, make the blue explode. I feel all this coming, dawning in my intentions. What joy and what torment! If the bottom were still, perhaps I would never reach these depths. Did they do better in the past? Did the Dutch achieve the poetry of clouds I seek? That tenderness of the sky which even extends to admiration, to worship: it is no exaggeration."

Artworks in context : Eugène Boudin (8)

Eugène BOUDIN (1824-1898), Pardon of Ste-Anne-La-Palud, 1858, oil on canvas, 87 x 146.5 cm. © MuMa Le Havre / Florian Kleinefenn
Eugène BOUDIN (1824-1898), Study of Clouds, Blue Sky, ca. 1888-1895, oil on wood, 37 x 46 cm. © MuMa Le Havre / David Fogel
Eugène BOUDIN (1824-1898), Lady in White on the Beach at Trouville, 1869, oil on board, 31.4 x 48.6 cm. © MuMa Le Havre / Florian Kleinefenn
Eugène BOUDIN (1824-1898), Crinolines and Cabins, 1865, black pencil, graphite and watercolour on laid paper, 16.7 x 23.7 cm. © MuMa Le Havre / Charles Maslard
Eugène BOUDIN (1824-1898), Studies of Cows, ca. 1881-1888, oil on canvas, 43.1 x 69 cm. © MuMa Le Havre / David Fogel
Eugène BOUDIN (1824-1898), Boats and Breakwater, 1890-1897, oil on canvas, 40 x 55 cm. © MuMa Le Havre / Florian Kleinefenn
Eugène BOUDIN (1824-1898), Still Life with Squash, ca. 1854-1860, oil on canvas, 56.5 x 83 cm. © MuMa Le Havre / Florian Kleinefenn
Eugène BOUDIN (1824-1898), Sky, Setting Sun, Bushes in Foreground, ca. 1848-1853, oil on paper, 11 x 19.5 cm. © MuMa Le Havre / Florian Kleinefenn