His Life – The Pinnacle and the Crises

      Like many artists of his day and earlier times, Monet repeatedly sojourned and worked on the coast of Normandy, where Delacroix and Courbet had once painted many marine scenes. Between 1883 and 1886 Monet often visited Étretat and produced many of his seascapes. Their recurrent motif is a cliff jutting out far into the sea, as in Cliffs at Étretat (1886, Pushkin Museum, Moscow), which was done from the d’Amont rock near the Payen house.

      The coastal town Étretat inspired several of Monet’s seascapes and landscapes. Monet was not the only painter at the time to travel to the north of France in search of inspiration for his works. Both Delacroix and Courbet had already painted in Étretat, and Monet owned a watercolour by Delacroix.

      Among them, Courbet, Pissaro, Manet, and Renoir also travelled to the Normandy coast. Monet frequently met with the writer and fellow Étretat resident Maupassant, who set most of his short stories in his hometown. The close relationship between art and literature and the two-sided influence between the disciplines during the 19^th century is clear.

      In his later works, created on the north-western French coast, Monet captured spectacular views of the sea and the beach life in all of its rawness.

      Among the steep cliffs on the various coastal areas, he directed his attention on three natural arches, Porte d’Aval, Manneporte, and Porte d’Amont, and the seven-metre needle.

      Because of the great interest, numerous artists on the Normandy coast consider the Manneporte as one of the most-often-portrayed rock formations.

      Monet alone painted six images of the Manneporte, which can be seen as an important step towards his series. Of which The Manneporte near Étretat (vol. 1, p. 237) and The Manneporte (Étretat) (vol. 1, p. 238) are integral.

      His hometown Le Havre, a place he held deeply in his heart, would again be close to him in 1868 when he settled nearby in Étretat with his future wife Camille Concieux and their son Jean, doing so again in 1883, 1885, and 1886.

      The power of the blue-green, partially violet water that broke into waves along the coast is seen in his paintings. He captured the raw weather, with its sudden changes from sunny to cloudy, and portrayed the lives of the local fishermen and their simple boats, moored on the pebble beach, as in Three Fishing Boats (vol. 1, p. 199) Monet often took many canvasses to the beach, and during the course of the day, alternated between previously started paintings, with the purpose of capturing the original lighting. At the end, Monet edited his paintings in his workshop. Altogether, Monet completed over fifty works in Étretat.

      Olive Trees in the Moreno Garden, 1884.

      Oil on canvas, 65.4 × 81.2 cm. Private collection.

      Antibes Seen from La Salis, 1888.

      Oil on canvas, 73.3 × 92 cm.

      Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo (Ohio).

      In December 1883 he set out with Renoir for the Riviera. In 1884, after Bordighera and Menton, he returned to Étretat, where he also spent several months during the following summer.

      The year 1886 was memorable for trips to Holland and Brittany; from January to April 1888 he lived on the Mediterranean coast at Antibes, before moving on to London and thence back to Étretat. These journeys were undoubtedly efforts to find new sources for his work, new and inspiring motifs.

      Nevertheless, in all his wanderings, Monet remained resolutely faithful to the central principle of his art, trying to penetrate deep into Nature, to apprehend her secrets and convey them through vivid and direct perception.

      After his arrival in Bordighera and exposure to the exotic nature of the south, he wrote to his second wife Alice: “My work is progressing, but I am experiencing difficulty; these palm-trees are a torment to me, and apart from that it is very hard to pick a motif and get it down on the canvas – there are such thickets all around.”

      Monet’s fascination with the Mediterranean landscape reached its peak during the 1880s. During this time, he continually relocated from place to place, in search of new sources of inspiration.

      After working in the French Riviera, Monet made a second trip to the south of France in 1884, in order to dedicate himself to the beauty of the Italian Riviera, where he completed The Castle at Dolceacqua (1884, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris).

      It portrays the small town of Dolceacqua in Liguria on the Italian Riviera with the ruins of the Doria Castle and a 14^th-century bridge running across the riverbed of the Nervia.

      Dolceacqua was the seat of power of the Doria family and home to Admiral Andrea Doria. The Doria family maintained dominion of the Republic of Genoa up until the 16^th or 17^th century.

      The Dolceacqua Bridge (vol. 1, p. 222) and The Castle at Dolceacqua, done in a matter of hours, belong to a notable series of paintings in which Monet focused on this gem in the Italian province. In both of the paintings, Monet painted the arched bridge in the middle of the painting, flanked by the two riverbeds of the Nervia.

      Cap d’Antibes, Mistral, 1888.

      Oil on canvas, 65 × 81 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

      Antibes Seen from the Plateau Notre-Dame, 1888.

      Oil on canvas, 65.7 × 81.3 cm. Juliana Cheney

      Edwards Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

      The Alps Seen from Cap d’Antibes, 1888.

      Oil on canvas, 65 × 81 cm. Private collection.

      Antibes, Afternoon Effect, 1888. Oil on canvas, 66 × 82.5 cm.

      Gift of Samuel Dacre Bush, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

      On the right side of The Castle at Dolceacqua, the castle towers above the small city. The painting captures only the castle, as if Monet had painted it from a high angle. For The Dolceacqua Bridge, the perspective is so low that Monet could have been standing directly in the riverbed.

      On the far-right margin of the painting, the exterior wall of a house is recognisable, and on the opposite end of the bridge, a tower protrudes over the building. The paintings differ not only in

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