Fishing Boats at Sea

In 1865, a young Monet submitted two large marine oil paintings to the official Paris Salon, and the acceptance of both marked the official beginning of his career. During the 1860s, while still in his twenties, Monet began developing a style that would eclipse that of his early mentors and painting companions. Although this painting was finished in the studio, it has the freshness of the plein-air style Monet practiced with Eugène Boudin and Johan Barthold Jongkind. It also employs a kind of coarse realism, as developed by his friend, Gustave Courbet. It is the broad brushwork, the unconventional flattened picture plane, and the harsh contrast of dark and light (all techniques paralleling the work of the older Edouard Manet), which made this work unacceptable for exhibit at the official 1869 Paris Salon. Undeterred by this rejection, however, Monet continued to develop his unique style, and, during the next decade, moved away from seascapes and other traditional subject matter toward explorations of the impact of transitory light, weather, and atmosphere on a subject.