Boudin, Eugène

(1824-1898)

   painter, watercolorist, chalk artist

   Eugène Boudin, who is noted for his seascapes and coastal scenes, was born in Honfleur. Discovered by constant troyon and jean-françois millet,he went to study in Paris and later traveled in Belgium, the Netherlands, and the north of France. He worked especially on the Norman coast and, around 1856, with gustave courbet and the Dutch artist Johan Barthold Jongkind, founded the saint-siméon school at Honfleur. Boudin, one of the first artists to paint in the open air, painted marine themes, views of harbors, beach scenes, and studies of the sky, all with a clear palette, bright shifting sunlight, iridescent sand and water, and vibrant and shimmering tones. Boudin was the teacher of claude monet, and he was strong influence and the direct precursor of the impressionist painters with whom he exhibited in the first impressionist show in 1874 (La Plage de Trouville, 1863; La Jetée à Deauville, 1869).