Daily art story: Eugène Boudin - the French landscape master

"To steep oneself in the sky. To capture the tenderness of the clouds. To let the cloud masses float in the background, far off in the gray mist, and then make the blue blaze forth." -- Eugène Boudin

Eugène Louis Boudin (1824 - 1898) was one of the first French landscape painters to paint outdoors. Boudin was a marine painter, and expert in the rendering of all that goes upon the sea and along its shores. His younger friend Monet wrote that he owed "everything" to him, Degas collected his paintings and Corot called him the "king of skies". (Wikipedia)

Do you need an excuse to go to France? Many of Boudin’s painting can be found in the Musée Eugène Boudin in Honfleur as well as the Musée d’Orsay and The Louvre in Paris. His work is also featured in numerous other provincial museums throughout France and in several American collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art.