La marée montante (baie de Saint-Valéry)

Boudin's painting of the rising tide at the Bay of Saint-Valéry — one of the Somme estuary's tidal inlets — belongs to his sustained documentation of the tidal rhythms, changeable skies, and atmospheric complexity of the Picardy and Norman coast. Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme and the surrounding estuary, with its dramatic tidal bore and vast mudflats that flood and empty twice daily, offered Boudin a landscape of perpetual transformation. The rising tide was an event of particular visual interest: the slow advance of water over flat land, the reflections multiplying as the surface area expanded.

The tidal landscape is rendered in the silvery palette of northern France: soft greys, greens, and the pale blue of water reflecting an overcast sky. Boudin's sky work is authoritative and light, the cumulus formations built from rapid loaded brushstrokes. The flat marshland composition emphasizes the vast horizontal of sky over water.