克勞德·莫內

藝術家身後
米榭·莫內，吉維尼（家族傳承自上述來源）
私人收藏，法國（1982年或之前購入）
拍賣：科勒畫廊，蘇黎世，1982年11月12-13日，拍品編號5115A
私人收藏，瑞士（購自上述拍賣；售出：紐約佳士得，2011年5月4日，拍品編號49）
購自上述拍賣

波士頓，美術館及倫敦，皇家藝術學院，〈九〇年代的莫內：系列油畫〉，1990年，品號63，圖錄載彩圖

溫特圖爾，溫特圖爾藝術博物館，〈藝術本質：十九世紀至今與大自然的接觸〉，2010-11年，品號32，圖錄載彩圖

巴塞爾，貝耶勒基金會博物館，〈莫內〉，2017年，品號不詳，圖錄載彩圖

丹尼爾·維登斯坦，《克勞德·莫內生平與專題目錄》，洛桑及巴黎，1979年，第III冊，品號1428，195頁載圖

丹尼爾·維登斯坦，《莫內專題目錄》，科隆，1996年，第III冊，品號1428，592頁載圖

Sur la falaise, au Petit Ailly belongs to the seminal series of expansive views from the towering cliffs along the coast of Normandy. Steeped in boundless originality of representation, this seaside motif is credited as one of Monet’s earliest experiments with the serial practice, the bursts of concentrated work on a specific and related subject that would come to dominate his artistic production in the 1890s and beyond. Monet steadfastly painted the northern French coast, a region to which, as a native of Le Havre, he was deeply attached and spent a great deal of time in the early 1880s. Returning once more to the seaside towns of Pourville, Dieppe, and Varengeville in the early months of 1896 represented the first time in a decade that the artist returned to the vistas of his youth as his subject matter. Upon his arrival to Pourville, a port roughly two miles from Dieppe, the artist wrote to his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in Paris, his delight evident: “I set myself up here several days ago. I needed to see the sea again and am enchanted to see once more so many things that I did here fifteen years ago. And so I have set to work with ardor”(quoted in Monet in Normandy (exhibition catalogue), Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, 2006, p. 156).

The return to these coastal scenes indicates Monet’s re-engagement with the very motifs that were instrumental to his evolution as an artist. This re-examination of the familiar panoramas resulted in a series of nearly fifty paintings depicting several towns along the coast executed in 1896 and 1897, the same years he executed his famed Matinée sur la Seine series near his home in Giverny. The resulting works represent a narrower range of vistas than the artist’s previous trips, a noticeable assessment of and reflection on his preceding compositions. Whereas in 1881 and 1882 the artist roamed all along the chalky cliffs looking for ideal locations to set his easel, in 1896, Monet limited himself to the select vistas he had explored during his earlier sojourn, prompting the most enthralling compositions. Through repetition, consistency and a strong understanding of the motif, Monet was afforded the opportunity to elaborate on these established scenes with greater freedom to undertake innovative risks, pushing the boundaries of his composition quite literally off the page. Compared to the earlier motifs of the rocky coastline, Monet created striking visual abstraction in these later views by bringing the viewer in as close as possible to the rocky landscape. The composition of Sur la falaise, au Petit Ailly is dominated by the rearing form of the massive cliff, which fills the left and center of the picture, compressing the sky to a narrow strip and all but effacing the view, merely hinting at vast expanse of the sea that lies before it. Executed with surety, the vistas in the distance are veiled in hazy light; the steadying horizontals of the sea and sky provide a balanced contrast to the variegated tones and textures of the bluffs. As in other works from 1896-97, the brushwork is less defined and more nuanced. The indistinct contours, and melded tones and forms of the bluff suggest the influence of Degas’s late landscape pastels and monotypes, which Monet would have seen when they were exhibition at Durand-Ruel in the fall of 1892. Heightened with pastel, Degas’s monotypes achieved a liberation of color and form that transcended any literal representation of the landscape. Soft-focused, grandly spacious vistas such as Rochers au bord d'une rivière are close in spirit to Monet’s later views of the Norman coast and undoubtedly inspired this return to the craggy shore. Degas's clear influence demonstrates the ways in which Monet habitually adopted and then quickly transcended the influence of recent artistic traditions, pushing well beyond them and adapting the best qualities to create works that are startlingly fresh, thrusting the boundaries of his medium to new heights. Monet’s success with the coastal series would in turn influence a whole group of French painters to travel to the sea to capture the imposing rock formations of the Norman coastline.