The Wave

Under low, dark clouds, rolling waves crash against rocks and break into white crests. Much of the canvas is dark blue-green and gray, and the whiteness of the spray stands out. It is an oil painting, 66.0 cm high by 91.2 cm wide.

According to the Shimane Art Museum, Courbet often painted the coasts along the English Channel, such as Deauville and Etretat in Normandy. Several versions of The Wave, made at Etretat in 1869, share the same composition, and the one at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo is the best known in Japan.

The painting turns its eye to ever-changing nature, with waves, sky, and moist air, and fixes the decisive moment just before a wave breaks. The museum's commentary says this way of seeing is probably not unrelated to the new vision brought by photography, which had begun to spread at the time. Courbet was a leader of the Realist movement and had a great influence on the later Impressionists.