Interpretive Resource

Having spent much of 1882 and 1883 scouring the cliffs of the Normandy coast for motifs, Claude Monet passed the winter and early spring of 1884 in the south of France, on the Mediterranean. In December of the previous year, he had discovered the area while traveling with Pierre Auguste Renoir; but he returned alone, determined "to do some astounding things."

Monet remained dedicated to Impressionism at the very moment that his colleagues, Renoir among them, were turning away from its aim of capturing transitory natural effects. Thus, in Bordighera, a resort town just over the Italian border, he responded immediately to the warm and constant southern light, so different from that of northern regions. Searching for painterly equivalents to this new environment, Monet covered canvases such as this one with a riot of intense greens and blues that at first glance seem to struggle with each other, but ultimately coalesce into a vibrant composition. Through a foreground choked with olive trees, we glimpse a sun-bleached town, beyond which the sea forms an expansive horizon.

Absorbed in the unique features of Bordighera, Monet worried that people would think his renderings false or exaggerated. He disregarded the picturesque conventions of guidebook illustrations to reveal the almost overpowering brilliance of the Mediterranean. Monet did not seek to contain or control the twisted tree trunks, bent by centuries of strong coastal winds; nor did he modify the gemlike azure of the water. Using what he described as a "palette of diamonds and precious stones," he moved beyond naturalism and emphasized the decorative aspects of his work, thus taking an early step along the road to his own version of Post-Impressionism.