Hang onto your hats! It’s hard to imagine a windier place than the artist’s vantage point for this landscape – a chalk cliff one hundred metres above the English Channel.
Impressionist Claude Monet painted many views of these popular rocks near the fishing village of Étretat on France’s Normandy Coast. He became especially adept at painting the shimmering effects of light on water.
Why is this landscape such an unusual shape? Monet painted it on an armoire door supplied by his hotel manager as partial payment of the bill. Lucky manager, who sold the painting in the 1920s!
Claude Monet
(French, 1840-1926)
Étretat: L’Aiguille and the Porte d’Aval
1885-86
oil on wood
85.4 x 44.2 cm (framed)
Art Gallery of Ontario, Anonymous bequest, 1991
© 2009 Art Gallery of Ontario