Towering, sheer cliffs loom to our left, over a sunny beach scattered with boats in this horizontal landscape painting. The chalky, rugged faces of the cliffs are dappled and streaked with olive green, dark brown, gray, rust red, and mustard yellow. The horizon comes a third of the way up the composition so the cliffs are outlined against the powder-blue sky, which is loosely veiled with wispy, cream-white clouds. The mossy tops of the cliffs are illuminated by sunlight from the upper left, and a solitary leafy tree leans into view between the two cliff-tops closest to us. Four empty, wooden…
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Beach in Normandy

Gustave Courbet (French, 1819 - 1877)

c. 1872/1875

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
overall: 61.3 x 90.2 cm (24 1/8 x 35 1/2 in.) ; framed: 87.9 x 116.2 cm (34 5/8 x 45 3/4 in.)
Culture
French
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CF
Credit line
Chester Dale Collection
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