Claude Monet Gallery
Rouen Cathedrale Fracade and Tour d'Albane (Morning Effect), 1894
Oil on canvas
41 3/4 x 29 1/8 in. (106.1 x 73.9 cm)
Tompkins Collection, 1924 24.6
Boston Museum of Fine Art
 
Monet’s series paintings of the 1890s—multiple variations of a single motif conceived, executed, and exhibited as a group—are among his most inventive and remarkable works. In the winter of 1892 the artist spent several months studying and painting the facade of Rouen Cathedral in his native Normandy. From rooms facing the cathedral across a square, Monet concentrated on the analysis of light and its effects on the forms of the facade, changing from one canvas to another as the day progressed. Later he extensively reworked the thirty paintings of the cathedral series in his studio at Giverny. Their encrusted surfaces of dry, thickly layered paint evoke the rough texture of weathered stone, absorbing and reflecting light like the walls of the cathedral itself.

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Bank of the Seine
Haystack at Giverny
Pond at Montgeron
Wheatstacks
Parliament
Water Lilies
Rouen Cathedrale
Chateau Antibes

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Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Monet was born in Paris, studied for one year at the Académie Suisse in Paris and completed a year’s military service in Algeria. He painted directly from nature and used quick brush stokes to record overall effect rather than detail. He and fellow artist, Renoir, did not use black or brown to describe shadows but instead contrasts of juxtapositioned colors.

In 1872 he painted Impression Sunrise, that led to the naming of the Impressionists In the winter of 1875 he painted snow scenes in Argenteuil. He spent 1877 painting the St-Lazare station. In the 1890s he worked hard on several series of paintings depicting haystacks, poplars on the Epte and the façade of Rouen Cathedral. In 1900, he embarked on his two most ambitious projects, the series depicting the Thames and the series depicting his beloved water garden at Giverny, which he continued to work on until his death.
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