The Port of Trouville 1875

Eugène Boudin created this oil on wood panel, titled 'The Port of Trouville.' Boudin was one of the first French artists to paint 'en plein air,' meaning directly in the open air. He sought to capture fleeting atmospheric effects in paint. It's no accident that Boudin was a key influence on the Impressionist movement. But he was also a product of his time and place. This is France in the mid-19th century, a period of rapid industrial expansion when the urban middle classes began to enjoy new kinds of leisure. Seaside resorts like Trouville sprang up along the coast of Normandy, a place where Parisians could escape the city. Boudin catered to this new market for landscape paintings that gave middle-class consumers a sense of their own status and mobility. To understand Boudin's art more fully, we can look at the history of French tourism, the rise of Impressionism, and the market for landscape painting. By considering these social and institutional factors, we can come to a more complete understanding of art's role in the modern world.