Natural beauty will never cease to fascinate artists, and none more so than the sea, from gently rippling waves to tempestuous storms. Impressionism was the perfect style in which oceans could be represented. The movement’s penchant for painting ‘en plein air’ was ideally suited to capturing the sea’s perpetual movement. This beautifully illustrated book of coastal landscapes and the delicate play of light on water illuminates works by the likes of Edouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pisarro, Berthe Morisot, Gustave Courbet, Paul Gauguin, Eugene Boudin, Paul Signac on a 19th century pictorial journey from Normandy and Brittany to the Mediterranean to Tahiti. ‘The sea has always been a wonderful teacher for landscape painters…they have all come to the coast…to learn the colour of the air and the secrets of the fog.’ – Claude Monet