..my trip to Venice [during 1895] will have been my swansong. - Eugène Louis Boudin

I have a confession to make. When I came back to.. ..the beach at Trouville.. ..it seeemed nothing more than than a frightful masquerade.. ..If you have passed one month among the people condemned to hard work in the fields, with black bread and water, and you then find that gang of golden parasites with such a triumphant air, you can't help feeling a bit of pity.. ..Fortunately, dear friend, the Creator has spread a little of his splendid and warming light everywhere, and what I reproduce is not so much this world as the element that envelops it.

I have too often contented myself with being a hasty improviser: I have spent too much time exploring fleeting effects of the sky and sea.

When I got back [from Le Havre], where I had made several sketches of the harbour exit, I thought of placing the sun in the background. I liked the picture so much that I painted it ten times over, with its three-master and its sun.