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Eugène Boudin
Eugène Boudin (July 12, 1824 ? August 8, 1898) was one of
the first French landscape oil painting artist to paint
outdoors.His pastels, summary and economic, garnered the splendid
eulogy of Baudelaire, and
Corot
who, gazing at his pictures, said to him, "You are the master of
the sky."
Boudin was born at Honfleur, Normandy, and in 1835 his family moved
to Le Havre, where his father established himself as stationer and
frame-maker. He began work the next year as an assistant in a
stationery and framing store before opening his own small shop.
There he came into contact with artists working in the area and
exhibited in his shop the paintings of Constant Troyon and
Jean-François Millet, who, along with Jean-Baptiste Isabey and
Thomas Couture whom he met during this time, encouraged young
Boudin to follow an artistic career. At the age of 22 he abandoned
the world of commerce, started painting full-time, and traveled to
Paris the following year and then through Flanders. In 1850 he
earned a scholarship that enabled him to move to Paris, although he
often returned to paint in Normandy and, from 1855, made regular
trips to Brittany.
Dutch 17th century masters profoundly influenced him, and on
meeting the Dutch oil painting artist Johan Jongkind, who already
made his mark in French artistic circles, Boudin was advised by his
new friend to paint outdoors (en plein air). He also worked with
Troyon and Isabey, and in 1859 met Gustave Courbet who introduced
him to Charles Baudelaire, the first critic to draw Boudin?s
talents to public attention when the artist made his debut at the
1859 Paris Salon.
In 1857 Boudin met the young
Claude Monet who
spent several months working with Boudin in his studio. The two
remained lifelong friends and Monet later paid tribute to Boudin?s
early influence. Boudin joined Monet and his young friends in the
first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, but never considered
himself a radical or innovator.
Boudin?s growing reputation enabled him to travel extensively in
the 1870s. He visited Belgium, the Netherlands, and southern
France, and from 1892 to 1895 made regular trips to Venice. He
continued to exhibit at the Paris Salons, receiving a third place
medal at the Paris Salon of 1881, and a gold medal at the 1889
Exposition Universelle. In 1892 Boudin was made a knight of the
Légion d'honneur, a somewhat tardy recognition of his talents and
influence on the art of his contemporaries.
Late in his life he returned to the south of France as a refuge
from ill-health, and recognizing soon that the relief it could give
him was almost spent, he returned to his home at Deauville, to die
within sight of Channel waters and under Channel skies.
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