With industrialization came a new division between work and home, and with it the emergence of leisure—a concept unfamiliar in earlier agrarian society. Rail travel made it easier for Parisians to leave the city, and resorts quickly developed along riversides and coasts as spaces of recreation, fresh air, and relaxation.

Artists captured these new scenes: suburban towns that flourished along the Seine from Paris to Normandy, and picturesque coastal resorts both north and south, where city dwellers embraced newfound freedoms of rest and enjoyment. Their paintings traced shifting seasons and atmospheres, observing how modern Parisians engaged with these fresh landscapes of leisure.