Beaulieu, La baie de Fourmis

Eugène Boudin painted this peaceful stretch of the French Riviera in 1892, capturing the Bay of Fourmis near Beaulieu-sur-Mer. The scene is all about light and air, with rocky cliffs sloping down to a calm blue sea and a few small houses tucked among the greenery along the shore. You can spot tiny sailboats drifting on the horizon, while the wide sky takes up nearly half the canvas. That focus on open skies was something of a trademark for Boudin, who loved painting the changing weather and atmosphere of coastal places.

Boudin is often called a forerunner of Impressionism, and he played an important role in art history as one of the first people to encourage a young Claude Monet to paint outdoors. He spent most of his career working along the beaches of Normandy in the north of France, but later in life he traveled south to enjoy the warmer Mediterranean light, which is exactly what we see here. The loose, quick brushstrokes give the painting a soft, almost breezy feeling, as if you are standing on the rocks yourself, enjoying a quiet afternoon by the water.