Manne-Porte, Etretat by Monet in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, January 2012

Manne-Porte, Étretat

Claude Monet, French, 1840 - 1926

Geography: Made in France, Europe

Date: 1885

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 25 3/4 x 32 inches (65.4 x 81.3 cm)

Curatorial Department: European Painting before 1900, Johnson Collection

Object Location: Gallery 152, European Art 1850-1900, first floor (Toll Gallery)

Accession Number: Cat. 1051

Credit Line: John G. Johnson Collection, 1917

Label:
Monet was impressed by the grandeur of the massive cleft cliff at Étretat, a natural monument along the Normandy coast. He emphasized its awesome isolation by painting the great vertical faces of the receding cliffs set against a sea that merges imperceptibly into the sky.

Additional information:
Publication: Masterpieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Impressionism and Modern Art

Like Eugène Boudin, Monet visited Étretat in search of striking natural scenery and sites where he could witness the effects of light on the sea and the chalk limestone cliffs. Because the landscape of the resort town was so well known, Monet sought unique views, climbing over steep cliffs and looking at familiar motifs from unusual angles. The present painting was begun in 1885, when Monet visited Étretat with his family at the end of the season. He painted tirelessly, beginning fifty-one canvases and working at several different sites a day in order to take best advantage of the light. This view is southwest of the beach, looking toward an archway known as the Manne-Porte, with the base of a tall, narrow rock formation called the Needle visible inside the arch. The cliff-top perspective gives a dramatic, slightly dizzying view down onto the water, accentuated by the absence of a horizon line, which is lost in the hazy overcast light that has blurred the distinction between water and sky. Monet concentrated his most painterly work in the foreground, where dynamic crisscrossing brushstrokes animate the sea and thickly applied ridges of white paint outline the waves crashing on rocks and shore. Jennifer A. Thompson, from Masterpieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Impressionism and Modern Art (2007), p. 70.

Text from: www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/101732.html?mulR=935742822|1