Soleil Couchant, Marine

In August 1869, Gustave Courbet painted twenty seascapes while staying at a relative’s seaside house tucked against a cliff on the Norman coast of northern France. This painting captures the light at dusk, offering an expressive vision of the sea in all its supreme vastness and immensity. Consider the passage below, in which Courbet conveys the character of the sea in a letter to Victor Hugo dated November 28, 1864:

“The Sea! The sea with its charms saddens me. In its joyful moods, it makes me think of a laughing tiger; in its sad moods it recalls the crocidile’s tears and, in its roaring furry, the caged monster that cannot swallow me up.”