Rouen cathedral (Monet painting)
| Rouen Cathedral, Full Sunlight | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Artist | Claude Monet |
| Year | 1894 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 107 cm × 73.5 cm (42 in × 28.9 in) |
| Location | Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France |
 Monet's Rouen Cathedral Series, Smarthistory
|
|
|
Lichtenstein's Rouen Cathedral Set V, a Pop Art "reproduction", Smarthistory |
The Rouen Cathedral series was painted in the 1890s by French impressionist Claude Monet. The paintings in the series each capture the façade of the Rouen Cathedral at different times of the day and year, and reflect changes in its appearance under different lighting conditions.
The Rouen Cathedral paintings, more than thirty in all, were made in 1892 and 1893, then reworked in Monet’s studio in 1894. Monet rented spaces across the street from the cathedral, where he set up temporary studios for the purpose. In 1895, he selected what he considered to be the twenty best paintings from the series for display at his Paris dealer’s gallery, and of these he sold eight before the exhibition was over. Pissarro and Cézanne visited the exhibition and praised the series highly.
Historically, the series was well-timed. In the early 1890s, France was seeing a revival of interest in Catholicism and the subject was well received. Apart from its religious significance, Rouen Cathedral–built in the Gothic style–represented all that was best in French history and culture, being a style of architecture that was admired and adopted by many European countries during the Middle Ages.
When Monet painted the Rouen Cathedral series, he had long since been impressed with the way light imparts to a subject a distinctly different character at different times of the day and the year, and as atmospheric conditions change. For Monet, the effects of light on a subject became as important as the subject itself. His Series Paintings, in which he painted many views of the same subject under different lighting conditions, are an attempt to illustrate the importance of light in our perception of a subject at a given time and place.
Rouen Cathedral, West Façade, Sunlight
1892
National Gallery of Art
Washington, D.C., USA
Rouen Cathedral, red, Sunlight
1892
National Museum of Serbia
Belgrade, Serbia
La Cathédrale de Rouen. Le portail et la tour Saint-Romain, plein soleil ; harmonie bleue et or
1892-1893
Musée d'Orsay
Paris, France
...
Wikipedia