This picture shows the view across Moulin Huet Bay on Guernsey. Renoir visited the island for six weeks in 1883, and this is one of a group of paintings he produced during his stay. He was starting to break away from some of the techniques of the Impressionist approach to landscape painting, which involved producing pictures almost entirely out in the open air. Instead he experimented with a return to the more traditional discipline of making oil sketches on site and a finished painting in the studio.
This is one of those sketches, and the spontaneity with which it was made is palpable. The figures are rendered with only a handful of brushstrokes, and the foam on the waves in the foreground is indicated with quick dabs and simple, wavy lines. It seems to have been made in one session: the figures were added while the paint layers of the sea were still wet.
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Martin Davies, with additions and some revisions by Cecil Gould, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: French School: Early 19th Century, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, etc.’, London 1970; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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