During the second half of the nineteenth century the sea and coastal landscapes became a recurring theme in French art. Realists, open air painters and impressionists found their way to the coast to depict the waves, sky and light. Maurice Denis belonged to the group ”Les Nabis”. The aesthetic ideal of the group was shaped by the new art impulses of the late nineteenth century—among other things, contact with symbolism and artists such as Paul Gauguin. Their handling of colour and free way of painting also has similarities with early modernism and the abstract paiting that developed at the beginning of the twentieth century.