One of the "inventions" of Impressionism was painting out-of-doors. Of course artists of the so called "Barbizon" school of art had done some painting outdoors for years sketching the scene in oils, maybe brushing in a few colors, but they had always "finished" their work in the studio. What was unique about the Impressionists was that they not only STARTED their works outdoors, but FINISHED them there as well. Among these was the early Impressionist Eugene Boudin.

Courbet once dubbed Boudin "The monarch of the skies". His father ran a stationery store in Le Havre where Boudin exhibited his canvases in the shop window. Also exhibiting there were the clever caricatures of a brash young teenager. When the two met in the shop one day, Boudin's sympathetic question to him could be said to have changed the history of art. "Why don't you PAINT?" He asked. The next day, Boudin took the young man with him to paint the seashore.

Who was that young man? Claude Monet.