Jetty and Wharf at Trouville

Fashionable Parisians crowd the wooden jetty at Trouville, a popular seaside resort along France's Normandy coast where city folk came to escape the summer heat. Eugène Boudin painted this bustling scene in 1865 using quick, loose brushstrokes, catching the ladies in their wide crinoline dresses, gentlemen bundled in dark coats, and two little dogs scampering across the sand. A steamboat sends dark smoke curling into the gray sky while a sailboat glides near the pier, small hints of the constant travel that kept the resort busy.

Boudin adored skies so much that fellow painters crowned him "king of skies," and this canvas shows exactly why. Roughly half the picture belongs to those soft, drifting clouds and the pale light shifting behind them, all painted with an airy, outdoor freshness that would soon become the heart of Impressionism. The link runs deep. Boudin mentored a young Claude Monet and pushed him to set up his easel outside and paint straight from nature. Everyday moments like this one, full of changing weather and casual comings and goings, helped set the stage for a movement that reshaped art.