Seascape with Open Sky

Eugène Boudin is best known for inspiring Impressionist artists, especially a young Claude Monet, to paint outdoors. This drawing belongs to a series that Boudin made throughout much of his career depicting seascapes with dramatic skylines onsite. He favored pastel, the powdery medium used here, for its portability and directness, allowing him to capture the dramatic effects of nature as they shifted.