Two of Claude Monet’s 30 renderings of the Rouen Cathedral are in the NGA collection. The artist ensured a good view of his subject by renting a second-story room in the hotel across the street from the church as a temporary studio. Throughout the day, he studied the effects of light and shade on the façade and captured them on canvas. Though these look like they might have been painted quickly, conservators have discovered that the paint dried in between layers, which means that Monet worked on the canvases slowly, over a long period of time.