Rouen Cathedral, West Façade

1894

Claude Monet

Associated Names
Claude Monet
Artist, French, 1840 - 1926
We look up at the exterior of a church that soars the height of this vertical painting. The church is painted with visible dabs and strokes of azure blue, peach, lavender purple, and camel brown to create a blurred look, as if seeing a reflection in the rippling surface of a puddle. The church façade is angled to our left, away from us. The main door and its surround takes up the center of the composition, where a rectangular door is set within nested, pointed arches that lead up to a narrow, tall, triangular gable. The point of that gable overlaps the round, dark rose window, which is the same width as the portal surround below. Spires flank the central section and rise precipitously off the top edge of the painting. The sky above is painted with daubs of white and pale blue. The artist signed and dated the lower left, “Claude Monet 94.”

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Toward the middle of the 1880s, a number of artists became disaffected with impressionism. Monet began to explore painting in a series, or creating groups of works of almost identical subjects. The series paintings were a break from impressionism in two critical respects: the works, based on campaigns in front of the motif, were usually extensively reworked in the studio and lacked the spontaneity integral to impressionism; and, the motif itself was secondary to effects of light and weather.

The new qualities of Monet's series paintings were given concentrated expression in the Rouen Cathedral paintings, in which the stone facade fills the canvases. Monet showed 20 of the 30 extant Cathedral works, among them this one, as a group in an 1895 exhibition. Individual paintings, named according to the view and weather conditions depicted, are chiefly distinguished by color, which assumes the principal role in the series. The cumulative impression reported by visitors extended beyond the impact of individual works. The rich surfaces of the paintings seem to imitate the textural fabric of the cathedral's carved stone. Individually the paintings depict a religious edifice, but collectively the series becomes a denial of the solidity of Rouen Cathedral as an entity, and gives precedence to artistic concerns of light, color, and mood.

In late January or early February 1892, Monet rented rooms across from Rouen cathedral. He remained until spring, painting its looming façade many times, most often as we see it here, close up and cropped to the sides. The next winter he returned to paint the cathedral again, making in all more than 30 views of it. But it was less the carved Gothic façade that was Monet's subject than the atmosphere—the enveloppe—that surrounded the building. "To me the motif itself is an insignificant factor," Monet said. "What I want to reproduce is what exists between the motif and me."

Rouen Cathedral, West Façade (English)
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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Chester Dale Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 100.1 x 65.9 cm (39 3/8 x 25 15/16 in.)
    framed: 121.6 x 88.3 cm (47 7/8 x 34 3/4 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1963.10.49

More About this Artwork

We look beyond a cluster of flags hanging from the side of one tall building onto a wide street at a row of buildings across from us in this vertical painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes, so some details are difficult to make out. We seem to lean out a window to look along the street, so the building to our right only skims the edge of the composition and continues off the top. The three flags closest to us fly from nearly horizontal flagstaffs along the bottom edge of the painting. All the flags are in shades of scarlet red, white, and royal blue. The flag closest to us is red with the red, white, and blue Union Jack in the upper corner. Beyond it is an American flag with 49 stars, and then the French flag with the vertical bands of blue, white, and red. Those three flags are repeated about a dozen times along the building that stretches away from us, along the right edge of the painting. More of those flags are hung from the cream-white and tan buildings across the street, to our left. Some of those buildings reach off the top edge of the canvas and others come close. The shadows along moldings and the windows are painted with pale and lapis blue. Through narrow gaps left between the fluttering flags, vertical strokes of navy blue and violet purple suggest crowds of people in the street below. The sky between the buildings is ice blue. The artist signed and dated the painting in the center left, “Childe Hassam May 17 1917.”

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

The artist to James F. Sutton [d. 1915], New York; by inheritance to his wife; (Sutton sale, American Art Association, New York, 26 October 1933, no. 58); purchased by Wilbur L. Cummings, Greenwich, CT; sold 1935 to Chester Dale [1882-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1895

  • Exposition des Tableaux, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1895, no. 20.

1896

  • Marvelous Paintings of Cathedral Rouen by Claude Monet, The American Art Galleries, New York, 1896, uncertain cat. no.

1965

  • The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

1980

  • Post-Impressionism: Cross-Currents in European and American Painting 1880-1906, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980, no. 28 (incorrect repro. of 1963.10.179, Rouen Cathedral, West Façade, Sunlight).

2010

  • From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, January 2010-January 2012, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1965

  • Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 96, repro.

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 92.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 82, repro.

1974

  • Wildenstein, Daniel. Claude Monet: biographie et catalogue raisonné. 5 vols. Lausanne and Paris, 1974-1991: 3:no. 1351.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 240, repro.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 487, no. 716, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 277, repro. 278 (repro. for 1963.10.49 incorrectly printed with entry for 1963.10.179 and vice-versa).

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 203, repro.

1998

  • Klein, John. "The Dispersal of the Modernist Series," Oxford Art Journal 21 (1998):repro 125

2000

  • Kirsh, Andrea, and Rustin S. Levenson. Seeing Through Paintings: Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies. Materials and Meaning in the Fine Arts 1. New Haven, 2000: 174-175, color fig. 181-184.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 384-385, no. 318, color repro.

2012

  • Kennicott, Philip. "French Rooms Reopen, With Different Accents." Washington Post 135, no. 55 (January 29, 2012): E25.

2023

  • Dombrowski, André. Manet's Minutes: Impressionism and the Industrialization of Time. New Haven, 2023: 156-159, color fig. 92.

Inscriptions

lower left: Claude Monet 94

Wikidata ID

Q17436687

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