Abbeville. Rue et Église Saint-Vulfran

Painted by Eugène Boudin in 1894, Abbeville. Rue et Eglise Saint-Vulfran is a rare townscape by the artist, formerly from the collection of the heiress Lady Baillie and more recently the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Lugano.

One of the first artists to paint en plein air, Boudin, whom Monet hailed as his ‘Master’, was one of the most important precursors of Impressionism. The sea and coastline of northern France, its harbours, ports and wide vistas captivated Boudin throughout his life and provided endless inspiration for his art. Born to a sea captain in Honfleur, before later moving to Le Havre, Boudin knew this coastal area intimately. Most likely spurred on by his friend, the poet, Charles Baudelaire, and his fervent belief in the need for artists to take modern life as their subject, Boudin broke with convention by depicting-with detached observation-contemporary life in his pictures. Combining his love and innate knowledge of the coast with a sharp and perceptive gaze of those that populated it, Boudin conceived a new type of landscape painting, one that was inherently rooted in contemporary life, freed from the classicising grandeur that had characterised the genre up until this point. In 1868 he wrote, ‘[I have been congratulated] for daring to include the things and people of our own time in my pictures..’ (Boudin, quoted in V. Hamilton, exh. cat., Boudin at Trouville, Glasgow & London, 1992-1993, p. 20).

Boudin would paint many pictures of the seascape and beach at Abbeville, but very few of the centre of the town, as seen in Abbeville. Rue et Eglise Saint-Vulfran. He was undoubtedly drawn, like many artists visiting Abbeville before him, including J. M. W. Turner, to the Gothic towers of the medieval Eglise Saint-Vulfran, soaring over the streets and buildings of the town centre. The figures of Abbeville. Rue et Eglise Saint-Vulfran are arranged across the wide, panoramic expanse of the street, with colourful shop fronts to the left and right. Using small, rapid brushstrokes and flashes of bold, pure colour, Boudin has not only conjured the subtle nuances of light on the facades of the buildings, but he has also captured the spectacle of the local people going about their daily business.