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Nantasket Beach
Emil Carlsen (American, born Denmark, 1853-1932)
1876
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 38.7 × 66.8 cm (15 1/4 × 26 5/16 in.)
- Culture
- United States
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- Friends of American Art Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Emil Carlsen combined naturalism with a bright, light-filled palette, creating a seascape that harmonizes academic painting and Impressionism. Blue sky and white clouds fill much of the canvas. The scene portrays a leisurely moment: two figures rest in the sand and look out at the rolling waves while a woman with a parasol walks along the water’s edge. Seaside tourism in New England—a subject portrayed here by Carlsen and, more famously, by Winslow Homer (on view nearby)—increased in popularity during the late 19th century, offering a respite from growing industrialism.
Trained in architecture in Copenhagen, Carlsen immigrated in 1872 to Chicago, shifting his focus to painting. After further study in Paris, he relocated to Boston in 1876, the year he executed this work.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
