Sailboats (c.1895)

As a genre of art, marine painting must be right up there for its levels of sheer craft and skill. Yet it would be hard to find a painting of the sea that achieves so much with such economy of brushwork. The apparent effortlessness of the artist seems to transmit to us a sense of peace, balance and all-round benignity.

Son of the great engraver and etcher, Auguste Boulard (nicknamed the ‘last of the romantics’), Émile, like his brother, was first a pupil of his father. He first exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1899 and continued to do so well into the new century. He also had solo shows in Italy during this time but his work was seen most frequently in Germany, usually at Galerie Heinemann in Munich.

His work can be found in the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée Louis Senlecq in Isle-Adam.