The Manneport Seen from the East

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The Manneport Seen from the East: Claude Monet

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Claude Monet Oil Painting - The Manneport Seen from the East

Keywords: Manneport, Seen, East

Work Overview: The Manneport Seen from the East (Manne-Porte, Étretat; Etretat, The Cliff, reflections on water)
Claude Monet
Date: 1885
Style: Impressionism
Series: The Manneport
Genre: landscape
Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 25 3/4 x 32 inches (65.4 x 81.3 cm)

In the winter of 1868-1869 Monet's attention was drawn to Etretat in the Caux region of Normandy. He then returned there every year between 1883 and 1886. Like many painters, particularly Gustave Courbet, Monet was captivated by the picturesque qualities of the place, and took inspiration from it for more than fifty of his paintings.
The configuration of "these high cliffs pierced by these strange arches called the Gates" (Maupassant, Adieu, 1884) gives an unusual character to the landscape. The largest of the three openings in the cliffs, the Manneporte, "an enormous vault through which a liner could pass" (Maupassant, Guillemot Rock, 1882), appears in only two of Monet's paintings. This work can be dated 1885, by analogy with another painting of equal size, signed and dated 1885: The Manneport, Etretat in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

In this same year, Monet frequently met up with Maupassant who was living in Etretat. The writer chose this place as the setting for several of his short stories. The writer's feelings, expressed throughout his descriptions, are close to those of the painter. Moreover, this view of the cliffs illustrates both the close links between art and literature in the 19th century and Monet's love for the Normandy coast. Elsewhere, Monet's repeated studies of the cliffs herald the "series" which would flow from his brush in the following decade.

Like Eugène Boudin, Monet visited Étretat in search of striking natural scenery and sites where he could witness the effects of light on the sea and the chalk limestone cliffs. Because the landscape of the resort town was so well known, Monet sought unique views, climbing over steep cliffs and looking at familiar motifs from unusual angles. The present painting was begun in 1885, when Monet visited Étretat with his family at the end of the season. He painted tirelessly, beginning fifty-one canvases and working at several different sites a day in order to take best advantage of the light. This view is southwest of the beach, looking toward an archway known as the Manne-Porte, with the base of a tall, narrow rock formation called the Needle visible inside the arch. The cliff-top perspective gives a dramatic, slightly dizzying view down onto the water, accentuated by the absence of a horizon line, which is lost in the hazy overcast light that has blurred the distinction between water and sky. Monet concentrated his most painterly work in the foreground, where dynamic crisscrossing brushstrokes animate the sea and thickly applied ridges of white paint outline the waves crashing on rocks and shore. Jennifer A. Thompson, from Masterpieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Impressionism and Modern Art (2007), p. 70.

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