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The founder and leading light of Impressionism was brought up in Le Havre. Having moved to Paris, he returned regularly to paint in Honfleur, Rouen, Étretat and Varengeville. In 1883 he settled in Giverny, where he spent the rest of his life (see Fondation Claude Monet, Giverny).

The greatest English landscape artist of his time, Turner (1775–1851) paid frequent visits to Dieppe, Le Havre, Rouen and the Seine estuary. His vibrant watercolours had a profound influence on the young Monet.

Born into a rich Rouen family, Géricault (1791–1824) shocked contemporaries with the realism of paintings such as The Raft of the Medusa .

Monet’s great friend and fellow Impressionist, Renoir (1841–1919), did not discover Normandy until he came to the coast in 1879, the year he painted Cliffs at Pourville and Mussel Collectors at Berneval . Once Monet had settled in Giverny, Renoir was a regular visitor.

Son of a peasant farmer in Gréville-Hague, Millet (1814–75) was apprenticed to a painter in Cherbourg before moving to Paris, where he worked under Paul Delaroche, and later to Barbizon, where he became a member of the Barbizon School led by Théodore Rousseau. He is best known for his naturalistic paintings of farm workers.

Corot (1796–1875) was a landscape artist who turned to portrait painting late in his career. The picturesque town of Étretat had particular appeal for him, and he travelled there with Courbet in the 1860s and ’70s.

First and most significant of the French Realists, Gustave Courbet (1819–77) spent time in Trouville with the American artist Whistler, as well as accompanying Corot to Étretat. His series of stormy seascapes, with changing skies, was a great influence on the Impressionists.

Only after flirtations with Impressionism and Fauvism did Dufy (1877–1953), a native of Le Havre, find his own style, using vivid, pure colour. His favourite subjects include carefree, ephemeral scenes on beaches, at horse races or regattas, and in the coastal towns of Normandy.

Brought up under the vast, luminous sky of Honfleur, Boudin (1824–98) did not have to travel far to paint his land- and seascapes. An advocate of painting in the open air – a practice to which he introduced Monet – he was preoccupied with light and its effects on his subject matter. His loose brush-strokes heralded Impressionist techniques.

Braque (1882–1963), who learned to paint while working for his decorator father in Le Havre, was initially attracted to the Fauve artists, but an encounter with Picasso transformed his style. In later years, he painted local landscapes and made stained glass in a studio in Varengeville.