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Cliff Walk at Pourville

Painting of a cliff overlooking the sea. Two figures in long dresses, one with a parasol, stand on the cliff beneath blue sky.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • Painting of a cliff overlooking the sea. Two figures in long dresses, one with a parasol, stand on the cliff beneath blue sky.

Date:

1882

Artist:

Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926)

About this artwork

In February 1882, Claude Monet went to Normandy to paint, one of many such expeditions that he made in the 1880s. This was also a retreat from personal and professional pressures. His wife, Camille, had died three years earlier, and Monet had entered into a domestic arrangement with Alice Hoschedé (whom he would marry in 1892, after her husband’s death). France was in the midst of a lengthy economic recession that affected Monet’s sales. In addition, the artist was unenthusiastic about the upcoming seventh Impressionist exhibition—divisions within the group had become pronounced by this time—and he delegated the responsibility for his contribution to his dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel.

Disappointed in the area around the harbor city of Dieppe, which he found too urban, Monet settled in Pourville and remained in this fishing village until mid-April. He became increasingly enamored of his surroundings, writing to Hoschedé and her children: “How beautiful the countryside is becoming, and what joy it would be for me to show you all its delightful nooks and crannies!” He was able to do so in June, when they joined him in Pourville.The two young women strolling in Cliff Walk at Pourville are probably Marthe and Blanche, the eldest Hoschedé daughters.

In this work, Monet addressed the problem of inserting figures into a landscape without disrupting the unity of its painterly surface. He integrated these elements with one another through texture and color. The grass—composed of short, brisk, curved brushstrokes—appears to quiver in the breeze, and subtly modified versions of the same strokes and hues suggest the women’s wind-whipped dresses and shawls and the undulation of the sea. X-radiographs show that Monet reduced the rocky outcropping at the far right to balance the proportions of sea and sky.

Status

On View, Gallery 240

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist

Claude Monet

Title

Cliff Walk at Pourville

Place

France (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1882

Medium

Oil on canvas

Inscriptions

Inscribed lower right: Claude Monet 82

Dimensions

66.5 × 82.3 cm (26 1/8 × 32 7/16 in.); Framed: 88.9 × 104.8 × 10.8 cm (35 × 41 1/4 × 4 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection

Reference Number

1933.443

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https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/14620/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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