This past winter Eisenhauer Gallery owner Elizabeth Eisenhauer and Kaitlyn Ruitenberg went to Brussels, Belgium to visit French artist Michel Brosseau; in Mr. Brosseau’s studio they felt as if they had entered a 19th century European atelier. Canvases are everywhere, filled with colored buoys and sailboat linens bright as if sunlight were pouring out from the canvases. Long drapes hang on tall sunny windows that fill the studio with a warm yellow glow while the murmur of Brussels traffic comes through an open window. Once in a while a neighborhood cat glances at a painting through the window before clambering up another roof.

Visits to European beach towns such as Knokke and Cap Ferret made clear where Mr. Brosseau gets his nautical inspiration. “When I first came to the Vineyard, I felt as if I had fallen in love for the first time in the United States” Mr, Brosseau said. His work pays homage to the Island’s maritime charm in his realist paintings of billowing sails and rustic fish shacks on raw linen.

“Brosseau has successfully defined what makes the Vineyard truly beautiful and unique in his paintings,” Ms. Eisenhauer said. “This has been my third summer showing his work and the Vineyard is coming through his canvases more and more.”

The artist will attend the opening reception for his show Violà la Voile: on Thursday, July 24, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the gallery on North Water street, on the porch with Chesca’s and the Colonial Inn in Edgartown.