We stand on a beach lined with black rocks and boulders looking out onto the water below a brick-red sky that dominates this nearly square landscape painting. The sky along the top edge of the canvas is turquoise but it quickly fades to rich, salmon pink and then to deep red along the horizon, which comes only a quarter of the way up the composition. Steel-gray clouds ripple across the width of the painting. Two sailboats float in the water in the far distance. The water is painted the same turquoise of the sky with some reflections of the deep pink and red. Close to us, water breaks around…
Gallery mode Full size at the museum

The Black Rocks at Trouville

Gustave Courbet (French, 1819 - 1877)

1865/1866

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
overall: 50 × 61 cm (19 11/16 × 24 in.) ; framed: 70.8 × 81.28 × 6.35 cm (27 7/8 × 32 × 2 1/2 in.)
Culture
French
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CF
Credit line
Chester Dale Fund
Rights
Public domain (NGA Open Access, 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 National Gallery of Art

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