The Beach at Villerville at Sunset

Though connected to the Barbizon group, the landscape artist Daubigny spent much of his career far from the group’s favored hamlet just southeast of Paris. The painting here depicts one of his own favorite spots—the remote fishing village of Villerville on the Normandy coast. With broken, summary brushstrokes and brilliant touches of yellow and orange, he casts a dramatic expanse of beach in the rosy sunset. Daubigny’s rapid painting technique and passion for capturing the fleeting effects of nature’s color and light directly anticipate the art of the Impressionists.

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