Monet Art Analysis

Etretat: la plage et la porte d'Amont

1883 ; 81.5 x 66 cm

oil on canvas

This painting of Monet can be viewed at the Musee d’ Orsay in Paris, France. This museum opened in 1986 and prior to its opening most of the impressionist paintings of the time were housed in Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume. Many of Monet’s contemporaries also have their works displayed there such as Pissaro, Dega and Cezanne (Musee d' Orsay).

This painting is of the landscape of Etretat, located in the Northern part of France and best known for its spectacular cliffs. The Etretat has three well known natural arches that can be seen from the towns of Porte d'Aval, and the Porte d'Amont. The third arch is called Maneporte and can not be seen from the two towns mentioned earlier. This place has brought many artists to paint its beauty and besides Monet, Eugène Boudin and Gustave Courbet have depicted their own versions of Etretat from their own perspective. This location was also home to one of my favorite writers of all time, Guy De Maupassant. It is a seaside village/ resort town in Normandy France and continues to draw large crowds of tourists yearly (Etretat Tourist Office).
We see the cliffs in the top right of the frame and boats scattered by the shore. There are people on the shore too but they fade into the background. The crispness of the water breaking on the shore is clearly more depicted and even the boats in the water are hardly noticeable. Monet paints this painting from a higher point and we can suspect that he is looking down into the seaside cove. He perhaps has chosen this point of view to be able to capture the overall dramatic and grand effect that the landscape provided. It reminds me a little of Japanese landscape art and how the people are insignificant as compared to Nature and its powerful presence. Monet has been proclaimed the father of Impressionism and because this painting is an Impressionist painting, the detail of boats and people are foreshadowed by the massiveness of the ocean and cliff. It looks like a busy day, perhaps Sunday, where the French have started to enjoy their weekends and bask in the afterglow of the sunset. The colors of that Monet uses makes me feel that the sun has just gone down and the last few rays of light are about to vanish as well. He doesn’t use that much color in this painting compared to many of his other works like Sunset, the painting he was made famous for or his water lilies collection.

The elements of art that are present in this work can be identified by his use of muted colors with hints of bright bursts of red and white on some of the boats and the edge of the water. His use of line can be most seen from the structures of the boats on the shore. The cliffs and sea are more massively portrayed than the boats or the people by them. My sense of time as indicated earlier is right after sunset where the sky is not longer orange but soon to be turning gray. It could be also that today out of all days may just be overcast too. Motion is seen by the froth of the water that Monet starts from the bottom left of the canvas all the way towards where the cliffs meet, at the far center of the frame where there is implied depth. The boats seem crisper than the background so I can only see this as my focal point when looking at the overall scene. The rich and colorful tones he uses for the boats are emphasized more than the many tones of yellow and brown used for the cliffs. The directional forces of his brushstrokes are more evident in the sky and the sea and there is a flow to the painting that gives an aesthetically pleasant effect. It gives me the feeling that this day is special because it is family day and these people have been out on the sea the whole day and are returning to their quiet seaside home.

The term Impressionism was coined by a photographer after seeing Impression: Sunrise of Monet’s at the exhibit Monet had put together with his artist friends in 1874. At the time, Impressionism was not recognized as what we accept Impressionism to be today, which has snowballed into its own art movement. Its methods were completely unlike anything seen in the art world of that day and therefore was frowned upon and scorned by many academics of art and critics alike. People went to laugh at their work and ridicule them. “Although Impressionist art is now largely seen as a pleasing, benign and almost universally beloved school of art, in the nineteenth century it completely contradicted popular concepts about art’s purpose and ideals” (Royal Academy of Art).

After researching about Etretat, I was able to discover that Monet was very aware of the fact that these cliffs had already been painted by two other artists prior to his attempt. It did not stop him and in fact he owned a Delacroix watercolor of the famous vacation spot. Monet was quoted to say this, ‘I reckon on doing a big canvas on the cliff of Etretat, although it’s terribly audacious of me to do that after Courbet who did it so well, but I’ll try to do it differently’ (Royal Academy of Art). I had to look for myself how differently his vision was from the former paintings and Monet’s is indeed not only different but far more enriched with color and his use of tones of the same color are used in a repetitiveness that is seen in the sea, sky and cliffs, but different muted variations of browns and yellows. He really let the natural light orchestrate his choice of hues. Corbet comes close to an Impressionistic work when viewed very close but the structure and use of lines are so defined. What is fascinating about Corbet’s version and Monet’s is that they both incorporate texture from the way they use paint. But other then texture, Monet’s perspective is clearly his own style. It must take an artist a lot of confidence to create something on a canvas that has already been put out by a prior artist though. It takes a lot of confidence in their skill and sheer guts. Then the question of originality comes to mind. If landscape artists paint the exact same view, whose to say that the later just sort of ripped off the former artist.

Now I am intrigued. As we know today, art has been regurgitated time and again. Just recently while at the LACMA I was able to view the Vanity Fair exhibit and as soon as I walk into the main hall, directly to my right is Julianne Moore, a red headed actress famous for her X-Files role in a pose that clearly resembles the Odalisque. Okay I said to myself, this is now cliché. With further probing into Monet’s artistic vision by looking at his work, I discover that even Eduardo Manet had a significant influence on him as he also tries to make his own version of Luncheon on the Grass that unfortunately was never completed. The Royal Academy of Art’s website says: “Monet, who had a competitive streak, embarked on his own Déjeuner sur l’herbe in the spring of 1865….The experience did, however, contribute to Monet’s realisation that to capture the fleeting moment in time, he would have to work on a smaller scale.” And because of this trial and error of Monet’s, he was able to make Impressionism’s key quality, which is to capture that fleeting moment when the light hits a surface or landscape.

So like artists then and today, they all get inspiration from one another and yet what separate the masters are the ones that are willing to experiment and are innovative with their work. Monet sure had vision and most importantly guts. This explains why Monet has several different versions of one landscape or place. One of the most famously known works where he paints the exact same scene but at a different time is the Rouen Cathedral. I have been able to experience Morning, White Harmony when it was at the Getty some years back and was literally awestruck by how his brushstrokes were so thick and unforgiving when viewed from up close and yet the farther away I stepped back from it, the painting came to life. This was my first time with Monet and I was a fan after that. I did not have any prior knowledge of the Impressionism Movement. I just knew that Monet was famous for his work, not even knowing why. But when I was able to really look at his work, even if I was unknowledgeable about art speak, I was still floored and moved by his technique.
I chose Etretat: la plage et la porte d'Amont to critique because of how he had also returned time and again to this destination and was able to record/ capture many of it’s moods, from the bright sunny days to the time just before the light were to disappear into the night. He was drawn to this particular spot because of prior inspiration from fellow contemporaries who had painted the exact same landscape (Delacroix and Corbet). And yet, He has managed to surpass all of them in his own successful career because of his desire and pluck for experimentation.

In today’s art world, there are many who are inspired by former artists and it is just a matter of time when postmodernism will have to make way for a completely fresh and ground-breaking departure from what is being produced today. It is clear that it takes not only determination from the artist as did Monet but an audience that is open to letting their instincts touch base with the work presented before them which is what happened to me prior to this Art Appreciation class.

Jean Claude Monet was a visionary and wasn’t afraid to break the rules. He has left behind such a dynamic and amazing life’s work that I can only hope to be able to travel to Etretat one day and watch the sun go down over the cliffs so that I too may have a glimpse of what he saw so that I can really see the process of his genius by comparing the actual experience to the painting above.

Works Cited List
Etretat Tourist Office. 4 December 2008 .
Musee d' Orsay. 4 December 2008 .
Royal Academy of Art. 5 December 2008 .