Shadows on the Sea. The Cliffs at Pourville

It is this impression Monet wishes to convey, just as he experienced it that day on the cliffs at Pourville in 1882. This view is from west of Pourville and includes part of the village, the cliffs between it and nearby Dieppe with the headlands stretching beyond the harbor to the northeast. Judging by the heavy use of purple, the light glowing at the top of the western slope and the shadow coming from behind him, Monet seems to have painted this in the gathering twilight. In his treatment of the sea surface, Monet’s Impressionist technique is evidently fully developed. Shadows, reflections and movements are depicted in a series of short, curved brushstrokes in pure, unmixed pigments. If one examines the painting from a distance while peering with half-open eyes, the elements flow together into an optic unity and the painting’s surface seems almost to vibrate–precisely as it does on a hot summer’s day by the sea, where the surface of the water is broken by the wind to become a million small, flashing mirrors.