This isn't just a pretty coastal view. It's Monet trying to convince the people he loved to come see a place that was completely winning him over.
What you're looking at
Monet painted this scene in 1882, showing two women pausing on a grassy clifftop above the English Channel near Dieppe, a chalk cliff dropping steeply to the water below, small fishing boats crossing the calm sea in the distance. The grass and the women's dresses share the same short, curling brushstrokes, tying the whole scene together with a single restless rhythm.
A letter about falling in love with a place
Monet spent time painting in Normandy in the 1880s and grew increasingly attached to the area around Pourville. In a letter to his second wife and her children, he wrote, "How beautiful the countryside is becoming, and what joy it would be for me to show you all its delightful nooks and crannies." They eventually joined him there, and the two women in this painting are probably Marthe and Blanche, the eldest daughters of that same family.
X-rays of the canvas have revealed that Monet originally painted a larger rock formation into the cliff face before painting it out to better balance the sea and sky. Monet's own dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, didn't purchase this particular canvas until 1888, a full six years after Monet painted it. It's now held by the Art Institute of Chicago.
One detail to look for
Look at the curling brushstrokes making up the clifftop grass, and compare them to the strokes shaping the women's dresses just above it. Monet uses the exact same rhythm for both, blending figure and landscape into one continuous motion.
See it at its real size
Our canvas print is labeled against the true size of the original, 66.5 x 82.3 cm. Shop the canvas print.