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The town of Villerville exerted a great attraction on plein air painters, welcoming Boudin, Daubigny, Troyon and Monet at approximately the same time as Haes. This small sketch, painted in the humid sandy areas of the large beach at Villerville on a cloudy day, is a horizontal composition organised in two bands of colour based almost exclusively on gradations of ochre and grey, the lower area of which follows a slightly diagonal line of dark pigment that opens the space up to the left. The ochre surface of the sandy area forms a contrast with the short vibrant brushstrokes that reveal the points of light reflected in the sea-water puddles, where a few female figures can be seen fishing for shellfish. The remains of a palisade is visible beside these figures, a silent witness to the passing of time and to one of the ancient fishing devices of the area, the guideaux, consisting of a line of logs stuck in the sand, to which nets are fastened in order to catch the fish when the tide goes out.

As a result of the deeply-rooted landscape tradition of his homeland and to the discovery of plein air painting, Haes became one of the most important landscape painters of the second half of the 19th century. His teachings at the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid influenced many of his disciples -Aureliano de Beruete, Jaime Morera and Darío de Regoyos among them- and renewed the genre of landscape in Spanish painting. (Ana Gutiérrez Márquez)

Selected bibliography

• Lasterra, Crisanto de. Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : catálogo descriptivo : sección de arte antiguo. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 1969. p. 57, n° cat. 122. (Con el título 'Playa de Normandía', y atribuido a Carlos de Haes)
• De Ingres a Cézanne : el siglo XIX en la colección del Petit Palais [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2004. p. 42, fig. 13. (Con el título Playa de Normandía. Viderville)
• Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. p. 100. (Con el título Playa de Villerville. Normandía)
• Musée des Beaux Arts de Bilbao : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. p. 100.
• Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. p. 100.
• De Goya a Gauguin : el siglo XIX en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Salamanca, Caja Duero, 2006. pp. 106-107, n° cat. 20. (Con el título Playa de Villerville. Normandía)
• De Goya a Gauguin : el siglo XIX en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Valencia, Caja Duero, 2006. pp. 106-107, n° cat. 20. (Con el título Playa de Villerville. Normandía)
• De Goya a Gauguin : el siglo XIX en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Salamanca, Caja Duero, 2007. pp. 106-107, n° cat. 20. (Con el título Playa de Villerville. Normandía)
• De Goya a Gauguin : el siglo XIX en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2008. pp. 207-209, n° cat. 29. (Con el título Playa de Villerville. Normandía)
• Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2011. p. 100, n° cat. 69.
• Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa : gida. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2012. p. 100, n° cat. 69.
• Musée des Beaux Arts de Bilbao : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. p. 100.
• Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. p. 100.