AN APPRECIATION: Eugene Boudin Eugene Boudin exhibited at the First Impressionist exhibition and so he is entitled to be called one of the original Impressionists. However, he is best known today as the mentor of Claude Monet. Boudin's influence on Monet can clearly be seen in his choice of subject matter and of colors. While he lacks Monet's genius, Boudin's works often have the liveliness and harmony that his pupil was to develop so successfully.
Career Boudin was born in 1824 in Honfleur on the coast of northwest France. His father captained a steam ferry between Honfleur and Le Havre. Eugene worked on the ferry for a time but after a near fatal accident, his mother insisted that the boy leave the sea and go to school. Not long afterwards, Eugene's father also left the sea. Moving the family to Le Havre, he opened a stationery and framing shop. The shop also exhibited paintings and works of art. As a result, the young Eugene was able to talk with artists such as Jean-Francois Millet, Constant Tyron and the Dutch landscape painter Johan Jongkind. As did his school masters, the artists recognized that Eugene had artistic talent and encouraged him to become an artist. By 1846, Boudin had taken the artists' advice and was painting full time. He traveled to Paris and Flanders to study art. In 1851, the town of Le Havre awarded him a three-year scholarship to study art. He worked in the studio of Eugène Isabey in Paris but most of his art education came from copying paintings in the Louvre. By the end of the decade, he had come to the attention of Gustave Courbet and the poet/critic Charles Baudelaire, who championed Boudin's work. In Le Havre, Boudin met a teenager who was displaying some of his caricatures in the Boudin family shop. Although Claude Monet's caricatures were popular and produced income, Boudin told him that he should stop drawing caricatures and become a landscape painter. Furthermore, Monet should try plein air painting - - painting scenes outdoors directly from nature. Eventually, Boudin persuaded Monet to join him on one of his outdoor expeditions. Monet was overpowered by the experience and it changed the course of his artistic career entirely. “If I have become a painter, I owe it to Eugene Boudin,” Monet said. Boudin's life followed an annual pattern.. In the summer months, he would travel, painting and drawing sketches of scenes in Normandy and Brittany. In the winter, he would return to his Paris studio where he would finish the works begun over the warmer months. In 1863, he married Marie-Anne Guedes. Until the 1860s, Boudin had concentrated on seascapes and scenes of the harbors in his native Normandy. Camille Corot called Boudin the “king of the skies” in recognition of Boudin's ability to capture light and clouds. The construction of a railroad line from Paris to the Normandy coast made Honfleur and the nearby area a tourist destination. People from Paris would come to the seaside and parade along the beaches in fancy suits and heavy long dresses. Boudin began painting these scenes of modern life. He found that there was a demand for these paintings as holiday souvenirs and sold numerous such paintings at a low price. Following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, which Boudin spent in Belgium, Monet invited Boudin to exhibit at an independent exhibition in Paris that Monet and a number of his young friends were organizing. Although older than most of them, Boudin had a number of things in common with these artists. They were enthusiastic about plein air painting, they painted scenes of modern life, and they were interested in the effects of light. Accordingly, Boudin participated in the First Impressionist Exhibition in 1874. Boudin, however, did not participate in any of the subsequent Impressionist exhibitions. Instead, he choose to follow the conventional approach of submitting paintings for exhibition at the Paris Salon. The Salon was the prestigious official art exhibition and the traditional route to success for an artist was to show paintings at the Paris Salon. Boudin's young friends disliked the Salon system because it was controlled by conservative juries who decided what would be shown and where it would be hung. Boudin, however, had had some success with the Salon beginning in 1859. He submitted pictures each year, some were accepted and some were not. However, considering the critical and financial failure of the First Impressionist Exhibition, the Salon seemed like the better approach. Boudin's reputation grew slowly. However, he won a third place medal at the Paris Salon of 1881 and a gold medal at the Universal Exposition of 1889. In 1892, he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. While his earnings did not make him rich, they provided enough money for him to travel to Venice and the South of France. After the death of his wife in 1889, he spent the colder months in the the South of France. However, towards the end of his life he returned to Normandy. He died in Deauville in 1898. Analysis Although Boudin was not one of the first tier Impressionists, he is important for two reasons. First, Boudin contributed to Impressionism by being the mentor to the young Monet. As Monet admitted, without Boudin Monet would have been at most a provincial caricaturist. Instead, he became the artistic leader of perhaps the most significant movement in modern art. Boudin's impact on Monet can be seen in several ways. He introduced Monet to plein air painting, which became a vital part of Monet's approach to art. In addition, Boudin influenced Monet in his choice of colors and brush work. Indeed, it is sometimes difficult to tell whether a painting done during the period that they were working together is a Monet or Boudin. Finally, Boudin's choice of subjects influenced Monet. Boudin was a master of depicting the light and atmospheric effects of the,sea and the sky - - subjects that Monet continued to develop throughout his career. Second, Boudin produced important works. His depictions of sea and sky are masterful and his Impressionistic choice of colors are often attractive to the eye. In addition, his depictions of tourists in Normandy chronicles everyday life and are important as a historical record. See our profiles of these other Impressionists and members of their circle.
Frederic Bazille Marie Bracquemond Gustave Caillebotte Mary Cassatt Paul Cezanne Edgar Degas Henri Fantin-Latour Paul Gauguin Eva Gonzales Armand Guillaumin Edouard Manet Claude Monet (Part I The Early Years) Claude Monet (Part II High Impressionism) Claude Monet (Part III The Giverny Years) Berthe Morisot Camille Pissarro Pierre Auguste Renoir Alfred Sisley Suzanne Valadon Victor Vignon |
Above: Entrance to the Port of Trouville.
Below: Entrance to the Jetties at Le Havre. 
Boudin's painted numerous beach scenes featuring ordinary middle class tourists such as in "On the Beach Trouville" above. However, sometimes he captured a celebrity such as "Princess Pauline Metternich on the Beach" below.
Above: A scene of the popular beach resort Etretat by Boudin. Monet would go on to develop this subject, doing several series of paintings of Etretat and its unusual geological formations.
Below: A scene of Venice from late in Boudin's career. 
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Artist appreciation - Eugene Boudin