拍品專文
In 1882, Monet spent two highly productive periods at Pourville on the Normandy coast. Monet was delighted with this picturesque town, and in a letter to Alice Hosched he wrote: "The region is extremely beautiful, and I only regret that I did not come sooner, losing time at Dieppe. One couldn't be closer to the sea than I am...the waves beating at the foot of my house" (quoted in D. Wildenstein, op. cit., 1979, letter no. 241). He channeled his enthusiasm directly into painting, working on several different canvases every day, and producing about one hundred works during his stay in the vicinity. Robert Gordon and Andrew Forge have commented that for Monet, "1882 was a year of almost superhuman productivity" (R. Gordon and A. Forge, Monet, New York, 1983, p. 95).
The view in the present painting is closer to the cliffs, thereby omitting the customs house seen in monet's other paintings of the site. This radically reductive viewpoint was likely to have been inspired by Japanese woodblock prints by Hiroshige and Hokusai. As William Seitz observed, "The radical cropping calls to mind Japanese prints, of which Monet became an avid collector, the surface is often divided into very few large areas. Horizontal recessions are avoided or gently coerced toward the vertical. Within the thoughtfully contoured shapes a broad vocabulary of coloristic calligraphy simultaneously translates into pigment both the vibration of light and the rhythms and textures of grasses, earth, clouds, foliage, rock surfaces, and waves" (W.C. Seitz, Claude Monet: Seasons and Moments, exh. cat., New York, The Museum of Modern Art, and Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum, March-August 1960, p. 16).
Monet's paintings of the cliffs at Pourville were immensely successful, both with critics and with collectors. Monet's dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, purchased paintings from him both in April and October of 1882, paying the artist over 31,000 francs.
The frame that accompanies this painting was made by the renowned Swedish craftsman, Walfred Thulin (1878-1949) who worked with leading artists of the Boston School, such as John Singer Sargent.
The view in the present painting is closer to the cliffs, thereby omitting the customs house seen in monet's other paintings of the site. This radically reductive viewpoint was likely to have been inspired by Japanese woodblock prints by Hiroshige and Hokusai. As William Seitz observed, "The radical cropping calls to mind Japanese prints, of which Monet became an avid collector, the surface is often divided into very few large areas. Horizontal recessions are avoided or gently coerced toward the vertical. Within the thoughtfully contoured shapes a broad vocabulary of coloristic calligraphy simultaneously translates into pigment both the vibration of light and the rhythms and textures of grasses, earth, clouds, foliage, rock surfaces, and waves" (W.C. Seitz, Claude Monet: Seasons and Moments, exh. cat., New York, The Museum of Modern Art, and Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum, March-August 1960, p. 16).
Monet's paintings of the cliffs at Pourville were immensely successful, both with critics and with collectors. Monet's dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, purchased paintings from him both in April and October of 1882, paying the artist over 31,000 francs.
The frame that accompanies this painting was made by the renowned Swedish craftsman, Walfred Thulin (1878-1949) who worked with leading artists of the Boston School, such as John Singer Sargent.