During his later years, Charles-François Daubigny traveled the rivers of France in his boat, painting the countryside. Due to their importance as trade arteries and sites of leisure activity for city dwellers, rivers were popular subjects for French landscape painters in the 1800s. Daubigny probably finished his paintings more extensively outdoors than did most artists of the time—making him a link between the Barbizon painters (among the first to paint outside) and the Impressionists of the next generation, who often worked entirely en plein air (in the open air) to capture fleeting effects of light and atmosphere.