Sensations of walking barefoot through cold, wet sand on a hot summer day are not to be taken for granted. After fighting in the American Civil War just years prior, Conrad Wise Chapman held this thought or a like one for many years. He celebrated his worldwide journeys with small panoramic paintings which feature people at leisure in their natural surroundings. The gray skies of the coast of France are famous over the globe, and for a handful of years after 1867, Chapman reveled in their cool presence.

The period dress of the well-to-do middle class is observed in the women sitting on wooden, four-legged chairs at the beach, watching the couple who are holding hands in the surf and the smallish manned sailing skiffs about their business. Flagged anchorage poles line the edge of the shelf, so inbound boats make find their marks. Some others frolic is the ocean as well. In the great distance, a large sailing ship and a steamer make for the headland ports across from the Normandy’s Côte Fleurie (Floral Coast). Chapman’s beach scenes of Trouville and nearby Deauville achieved his widest recognition for their fine aesthetic quality within his lifetime career. They are similar to the most important paintings of Eugene Boudin of people at the beach in this very same period.

Deep coloration presides in this painting, backlit with the luminous finale of a warm day off the New York Coast. This painting is from a view northeast of Long Island, looking southwest at the elevations of Montauk Point and Long Island Proper. De Haas, well familiar with the sailing environs of greater New York, and well beyond the waters of the sound.

The burnished sky glows with a range of warm yellows, with the cloud caps blazing strongest as the sun, well, sets. The largest ship, a steam-sail merchantman running perpendicular to the wind, cuts through the scene with several schooners sailing on the horizon for parts elsewhere. A two-masted lugger was an uncommon but not unknown of sight in New York waters, as several were used as life saving vessels as well as fishers, in part due to their very quick directional handling. Even at this distance, they are working their sailing to keep clear of the large ship.

Deep ocean currents cut through the North Atlantic, and de Haas shows he has given them notice, for his water portrays some of the chaotic action of the swells near the coastlines. In an interesting manner, he chose to impart the difficulties of vision a setting sun at sea creates, with the darkening of the lower elevations, and the brightest illumination existing on the undersides of the clouds, rising even beyond the reach of the tall ship’s masts. The last moments of precious daylight will be met with oil lamps and extended watches as the sailors head away and toward New York.

This painting is attributed to Gustave Courbet, and although listed as a collaboration in Jean Fernier’s forthcoming catalogue raissoné supplement of the artist’s work, it is our opinion that this painting is pure Courbet with possibly some assistance by Louis Augustin Augin who was, at the time it was painted, a student of Courbet in the region of Saintonge. The masterful technique used to portray the sky, sea and sand as well as the coloration in the rocks strongly suggests Courbet’s touch.

In a simple composition (also a Courbet trait) believed to be the coastline near the village of Royan, Courbet would have quite possibly been offering an example to his student and helper of how to capture the beautiful austerity of nature. Courbet’s brilliant use of thick layers of paint applied with a palette knife is another of the traits quite evident in this work.

The quality of this painting is in keeping with other examples by this important Barbizon artist. The wonderful balance of the dramatically colored sea beneath the soft clouds is bisected by the tall rocks that divide the view. It shows Courbet painting “things as they really are” the guiding principal in his work that marked his greatness.

An original and detailed narrative scene with an unusual perspective of the often depicted cliffs of normandy, the painting is a nice depiction of people at leisure. The title literally translates to “walk with the foot of a cliff in normandy”. The double entendres of walk and foot apply to both the elegant figures and the physical location’s attributes, so we’ll leave the definition to speak for itself, as the artwork does so well.

Much in keeping with his contemporary artists around the french coasts, a grey somber sky is flush with cool depth, and every beach visitor is properly, fully attired. Canes and parasols in hand, they stroll with children or their beloved pets. The foremost couple relax to watch the cutter yacht and several more sailing ships beyond the light-marked stone jetty breakwater. A lone figure prepares a bonfire stack on the beach as well.

Stevens treatment of the different textures of the beach, ocean, chalky cliffs and lush grasses is beautiful to observe in its intended full composition and interesting close-up to the surface. While it’s an impressionistic painting with loose boundaries, he gave a great deal of care to the placement of each touch of the brush. Specifically, even though there are few in the overall composition, his soft, suggestive treatment of the small wild flowers near the couple have the haphazard yet well thought out positioning true to nature. His sky has aggressive, wispy brushstrokes, and the wet sand is slick, applied in smooth layers in some spots with a stroke of a palette knife. This is a well executed painting with desirable subjects.

If a more storied port that Newport, Rhode Island exists on the American seaboard, it will have a tough time proving it. Even the vaunted ports of New York and San Francisco pale to match the activities of Newport in terms of historic longevity and sheer variety of use. History records its establishment in 1639 when Warren Coddington set out from Portsmouth to start his own settlement. Provincetown artist Reynolds Beal shows the harbor’s mature grandeur and diversity in the remarkable impressionist painting, with its view of the harbor from the Warwick Headland breakwater.

Superb with his trademark colorful vibrancy, Beal shows a turn-of-the-century square-rigged sailing ship accompanied by several sailing yachts and a schooner running upon the water. The foreground rolling waves meet the natural breakers to elevate the work. An expanse of cumulus clouds complete the imagery of this vast vista.

Landmarks confirm the location of this work combined with the unique visual geography. The dominant structure is Fort Adams, located on the Branton Cove Peninsula. The fort is one of the largest seacoast fortifications on the east coast, covering more than 23 acres. Built in the 1820s, the main battery housed the U.S. Naval Academy during the Civil War. Under its protective presence, six yacht clubs operate in the harbor, including the Newport Yacht Club, the New York Yacht Club, the U.S. Naval Yacht Club and the Ida Lewis Yacht Club, named after the harbor’s famed lifesaver of lime rock lighthouse.

A interesting homage to the issue of rank amongst the crews and officers of all vessels, a captain is carried to his ready command by one of his subordinates through the ocean surf in this coastal scene by William Edward Norton. It is along the Dutch Coast, as is recorded by the artist himself with an old label verso, extremely rare for this artist to have provided any identifying information for his painted subject.

We are told as well that it is a fishing boat, although the thick, rounded hull and dropped sideboard would have made that our first guess, as well as its Northern Europe nationality of the vessel. It was on these shores that Norton perfected his art, following in the steps of William Edward Cook, famous for such scenes through the 1850s.

A serene implication falls over the composition with Norton’s intentionally muted, soft sky tones; the atmosphere feels cool and heavy, yet the colors of the ship’s rails and hulls pop in their blue, green and red hues. The crashing white impasto of the surf gives the scene not only depth, but practically a third dimension with its thick application. The overall feeling of optimism for their success makes this a great and unusual vertical coastal scene, a perfect compliment to a traditional ship portrait.