Rouen Cathedral Paintings (1892-4) by
Claude Monet
Interpretation of Impressionist
Urban Landscapes
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Rouen Cathedral Paintings (1892-4) by
Claude Monet
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Rouen Cathedral Paintings (1892-4)Contents • Description Name: Rouen Cathedral Paintings (1892-4)
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND
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The series of thirty Impressionist paintings featuring Rouen Cathedral, was painted by Claude Monet between 1892 and 1894, and merely added to his status as one of the best landscape artists of his day. Each work captures the facade of the Cathedral at different times of the day and year, thus reflecting the changes in its appearance under different conditions of light and colour. It was the third such series he had painted, the earlier ones being: Poplars (1890), a three-part series of poplar trees; and Haystacks (1890-1), a 25-canvas series of wheatstacks. Later, during the last decades of his life, he would complete the finest sequence of Impressionist landscape painting - his much loved series of Water Lilies (Nymphéas), in his pond at Giverny. The pictures of Rouen Cathedral were created in 1892 and 1893, then completed in Monet’s studio in 1894. The series found a ready market. The 1890s revival of interest in Catholicism, as well as the representation of one of France's best Gothic Cathedrals - the groundbreaking 'Gothic style' was and is a highpoint of French culture - ensured that the project was well received. For a long time Monet had been intrigued with how the character and shape of an object changed, according to the light, at different times of the day and the year. His series of Poplars, Haystacks, Waterlilies and Rouen Cathedral, each of which featured repetitive views of the same subject under different lighting conditions, was his attempt to illustrate the contribution of light to our optical perception of an object at a given time and place. For more background, see: Characteristics of Impressionism (1870-1930).
Analysis of the Rouen Cathedral Paintings by Claude MonetLight was all that interested Monet. In order to pin down this phenomenon he painted all the variations possible on a single subject. After having, in 1890, observed the haystacks in a field in Giverny in all weathers, then, on the banks of the Epte, painted the poplars at different times of the day, he took for his subject a cathedral under the same conditions. In February 1892 he went to live at Rouen above a shop called Au Caprice, at 81 Rue du Grand-Pont, where the owner, Monsieur Mauquit, rented him a room. He stayed there many months, and from the ever-open window on the first floor he contemplated the main facade of the cathedral. He reproduced its various aspects in several pictures simultaneously, going from one to the other according to the time of day and the weather. |
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His painting technique was still changing; his paint became a sort of stippled cement as if to imitate the grain of the old stones. "Rouen Cathedral, Bright Sunshine" (1894) (see top-left) was painted in full sunshine. Others were done in a grey dawn, or at twilight, in the fires of sunset, or again all veiled in mist. Clemenceau classified this series of cathedrals in four groups, the greys, the whites, the blues, and the rainbow hued. The following year, 1893, Monet returned to Rouen and continued his variations on this theme, then during the following months he went to Giverny where he put the finishing touches to his work from memory. His letters testify to the trouble he took. "I work as hard as I can but what I have undertaken is enormously difficult". "My stay here is drawing near its close. This does not mean that I am ready to finish my cathedrals. Alas, the more I go on the more difficult I find it to put down what I feel. It is forced labour, searching, testing, not achieving very much." Still anxious to perfect his series, he only finished it two years later, in the spring of 1894, continually postponing the exhibition he had arranged at the well-known gallery of the Parisian art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922). Finally in March 1895, he allowed the gallery to exhibit the 20 best paintings from the series, of which eight were sold before the show was over. The exhibition was highly praised by the critics as well as other Impressionist painters, including Pissarro (1830-1903) and Cezanne (1839-1906). Using a cathedral as his subject allowed Monet to illustrate the paradox between a relatively solid, permanent stone structure and the evanescent light which controls our perception of it. In these compositions, he used thick impastoed layers of paint, expressive of the nature of the subject. This texture and Monet's subtle interplay of colours helped to fashion a series of shimmering images that are entirely worthy of their monumental subject.
Examples from the Series "Rouen Cathedral, Grey Weather"
(1892-4) "Rouen Cathedral, Morning Sunshine"
(1892-4) "Rouen Cathedral, Bright Sunshine"
(1892-4) "Rouen Cathedral, the West Portal,
Dull Weather" (1892-4) "Rouen Cathedral, Sunset" (1892-4) "Rouen Cathedral, West Facade, Sunlight"
(1892-4) "Rouen Cathedral, (Morning effect)"
(1892-4) "Rouen Cathedral, red, Sunlight"
(1892-4) "Rouen Cathedral, Setting Sun"
(1892-4) "Rouen Cathedral, dull day" (1892-4) "Rouen Cathedral, The Facade in Sunlight"
(1892-4) "Rouen Cathedral, Morning Light"
(1892-4) Explanation of Other Paintings by Monet • Women
in the Garden (1866-7) Musee d'Orsay, Paris. • La
Grenouillere (1869) Metropolitan Museum of Art. • The
Beach at Trouville (1870) Wadsworth Atheneum, CT. • Impression,
Sunrise (1873) Musee Marmottan-Monet, Paris. • Poppy
Field (Argenteuil) (1873) Musee d'Orsay. • Gare
Saint-Lazare (1877) Musee d'Orsay, Paris. • Water
Lily Pond: Green Harmony (1899) Musee d'Orsay. |
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• For an explanation of other Impressionist landscapes, see: Homepage.
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