A critical analysis dedicated to Monet’s masterpiece preserved in the permanent collection of the Fondazione Magnani Rocca.

The extraordinary landscape of the cliffs of Pourville belongs to a series of five works painted by the artist between January and March 1897. Since the early 1870s, Monet had been devoted to studying variations of the same motif—the fragment of reality chosen by the artist as the subject of the work—according to the changing “effects.” These effects are the unpredictable result of the interplay between light, colors, shadows, and atmosphere, all elements that impart a temporal quality to the motif. This renders the moment captured by the artist unique and distinct from all others, both preceding and following it.

For this reason, Monet needed to study the chosen motif extensively, as is evident from his correspondence, filled with references to patient observations and feverish waits for the “right” light, for the anticipated atmospheric enchantment that he could not afford to miss. With his usual finesse, Roberto Tassi clarified that the goal of Monet’s relentless work, which might seem to aim for immediacy, was in fact “the depth of time.” The image of the moment depicted was, according to Tassi, “the sum of countless moments, profound gazes, and long meditations.” While immediacy was “the mode of time represented during the Impressionist period,” Monet’s approach had already gone beyond this, striving to “come ever closer to the complexity of reality” and to expand the relationship between painting and time.

The landscape of Pourville, in Normandy, with its cliff extending to embrace an arm of the sea, offers the painter one of his favorite views—a motif with an asymmetrical composition and planes articulated by the succession of elements: earth, sea, and sky. Monet had already lingered on this scene extensively in 1882 (as seen in works preserved in the Metropolitan Museum, New York; the Cleveland Museum of Art; and the Art Institute of Chicago). Here, the clear light of dawn unifies the diverse components of the painting into a delicate tonal harmony. Warm and cool tones interact to capture, with absolute precision, the sense of awaiting the day, while mists rising from the sea, touched by the first rays of sunlight, soften the contours of the cliff.

An extraordinary achievement of the artist’s maturity is precisely that sense of atmospheric fusion, the ineffable harmony of the vision, which is at once an objective observation and an emotional experience. It is a subjective enchantment with blurred contours, like those of an object reflected in water—the element most loved by the painter, “whose appearance changes every moment as fragments of sky reflect upon it, imbuing it with life and movement. To capture the fleeting moment, or at least the sensation it leaves behind, is already challenging enough when the interplay of light and color focuses on a fixed point […] but water, being such a mobile and constantly changing subject, is a true challenge […]. A man could dedicate an entire lifetime to such an endeavor.”