To Eugene Boudin, son of a sailor, the choice was simple: either go to sea or paint it. Boudin opted for the artist's path, and the world has been in his debt ever since. The poet Baudelaire was astounded. From Boudin's paintings, he wrote, it was possible to "guess the season, the hour and the wind." To Camille Corot, he was "the king of the skies." And in the 20th century, Georges Braque, looking back, said flatly: "Boudin invented the seashore."
The quiet little man who was the object of such attention never thought so well of himself. Born in...
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