His first steps in printing led Eugène Boudin to meet Thomas Couture and Jean-François Millet, and pushed him to launch an artistic career. He was then 22 years old. From 1851, he frequented Isabey’s studio while copying the great masters at the Louvre. In 1859, he exhibited for the first time at the Salon and became friends with Courbet and Jongkind. He and Courbet met frequently in Normandy. Between 1863 and 1867, he made numerous stays in Brittany and took part in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. Boudin established himself as the painter of marines paying homage to the sea and its shores. His style is illustrated by the importance he gives to the sky and the atmospheric effects celebrated by Corot, but also by his rapid brushwork, the only means of capturing and restoring the movement of light.
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By his choice of new subjects, such as the changing light, the immense and shifting skies, the shores and beaches of Normandy, but also by a rapid treatment close to a sketch, Boudin announces Impressionism. Already, he states that "only the states of the atmosphere according to place, time and wind interest him", and it is he who will initiate Monet to outdoor painting. By this very fact, he is thus the precursor of Impressionism. Aguttes regularly pays tribute to this talented painter. The one who is nicknamed "the king of the skies" by Corot still stimulates the interest of collectors.
