The Cliff Walk Pourville

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The Cliff Walk Pourville: Claude Monet

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Claude Monet Oil Painting - The Cliff Walk Pourville

Keywords: Cliff, Walk, Pourville

Work Overview: The Cliff Walk at Pourville
Artist Claude Monet
Year 1882
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 66.5 cm × 82.3 cm ( 26 1⁄8 in × 32 7⁄16 in)
Location Art Institute of Chicago

The Cliff Walk at Pourville is an 1882 painting by the French Impressionist painter Claude Monet. It currently resides at the Art Institute of Chicago. It is a landscape painting featuring two women atop a cliff above the sea.

The canvas was inspired by an extended stay at Pourville in 1882. Monet settled in the village between February and mid-April, during which time he wrote to his future wife, Alice Hoschedé, "How beautiful the countryside is becoming, and what joy it would be for me to show you all its delightful nooks and crannies!" They returned in June of that year. The two young women standing atop the cliff may be Hoschedé's daughters, Marthe and Blanche;[1] it has also been suggested that the figures represent Alice and Blanche, both of whom painted out of doors at that time.[2]

The various elements of the painting are unified through brushwork; short, crisp strokes were used to paint the grasses of the cliff, the women's drapery and the distant sea. A sense of movement suggested by painterly calligraphy was a property of Monet's work in the 1880s, and is here used to connote the effect of a summer wind upon figures, land, water, and clouds moving across the sky.[3] During the painting process, Monet reduced the size of a rocky promontory at far right, to better balance the composition's proportions;[4] however, it's also been noted that this secondary cliff was a late addition to the canvas, and was not part of the original design.[5] An X-ray of the painting indicates that the artist originally painted a third figure into the grouping, then removed it.[6]

Describing similar works by the artist, art historian John House wrote, “His cliff tops rarely show a single sweep of terrain. Instead there are breaks in space; the eye progresses into depth by a succession of jumps; distance is expressed by planes overlapping each other and by atmospheric rather than linear perspective- by softening the focus and changes of color.”[7] The sense of immediacy is heightened by the juxtapositions of the cliff and sea, the contrast between ground and openness.

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Monet at Normandy, The Cliff Walk Pourville
by Eldon Beck

what do they see
two young women
in wind-whipped white
dress draped with grey
midst golden turmoil of flowers and grasses
on the shear bluff above
the white capped sea

what do I see
hiding in splashes of paint
within the joy of creation
a vision that compels
feel the wind, smell the salty air, see/sea forever
wildness invades
stirs the garden inside me
arouses
memoires of Viking past
mind and soul fly free

how does paint
on canvas
touch so deeply
cause a search through crowded years
connect
to my past and future
bask
in this moment

-----------------------------
To the Edge
What was it that enticed
these willowy women
to the edge
of that seaside cliff at Pourville?
Perching like two lush wildflowers,
freshly plucked from
the surrounding soil that sheltered them,
they bend toward
the blue open space,
ignoring the resolute wind
that binds their sinuous skirts.
Below on restless waves,
the busy boats
rock in rhythm,
as if attuned to
the beating hearts above.
Just then, I wonder:
Might these two Graces
allow me to join them,
If only
to inhale the lingering scent--
the potpourri of fish scales, salt air, and sea lavender--
If only
to remember
this one supple moment.
- Karen D. Benson
THE EDGE
Her laugh was a quick cry --
sounding
to me
like a grassy cliff
on a hot day, breaking
without warning --

the drop
echoing back
from the sea
- E.E. Nobbs

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