Deux bateaux sur la plage is related to Courbet's monumental work, The Cliff at Etretat after the Storm (Musée d'Orsay, Paris). Both paintings depict boats docked on a shore by a calm sea under a blue sky. Like most of Courbet's marine paintings from this period, there is no indication of a human presence. The idea of man's relationship to nature was an important, almost obsessive occupation of many of the 19th century French painters, and in Courbet's marine scenes, nature's power over man is expressed by the majesty and infinity of the sea.