Zicht op de badkoetsen bij Boulogne-sur-Mer vanaf de pier 1847

Jean-Baptiste Arnout created this print of the beach at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. It pictures a slice of bourgeois life around the middle of the 19th century. By this time, the culture of leisure was well established among the middle classes of Western Europe. Public entertainments and tourism were booming. In this image we see wealthy individuals enjoying a day at the seaside, a novelty at the time. For those who wished to bathe in the water, horse-drawn bathing machines offered a solution that allowed them to maintain modesty. In the background, a steam train suggests how easily tourists were now able to travel across the country for recreation. As art historians, our job is to reveal these social and historical conditions, using primary sources such as journals, maps, and guidebooks to help us understand this print better. The meaning of art is always contingent on such contextual knowledge.