Claude Monet
French (1840-1926)
1885
Oil on canvas
Sorry for the late posting for the September study! Kids have been back in school for a whole week so there's no really good excuse except that it was a busy week!
Here's a little bit of background about this month's master painting:
During the 1860s, '70s, and '80s the village of Etretat on the Normandy
coast became an increasingly fashionable vacation spot for families from
Paris and other cities in Northern France. Painters such as Gustave
Courbet and Giovanni Boldini helped to encourage the popularity of the
place, recording the spectacular shapes of the cliffs and the changeable
weather conditions of the English Channel. In Monet's painting, the
cliffs rise out of the water -- half in cool shadow, half in warm,
bright sunlight -- dwarfing the tiny boats with their orange sails,
which glide between and around them. Unlike Boldini, who uses the cliffs
as the background for a picturesque image of locals and tourists
crowding around a fishing boat in Return of the Fishing Boats, Etretat,
Monet focuses his attention -- and ours -- on the light that reflects
off the constantly shifting surface of the water and the solid, craggy
faces of the monolithic rocks.
Azra Iqbal - The Cliffs at Etretat after Claude Monet
Oil on 11x14 canvas paper
Watercolor on Aquaboard - 20cm x 30cm
