About this work
Two women stand at the edge of a sunlit Norman cliff, the grass quivering beneath them, the Channel stretching wide to the horizon. *Cliff Walk at Pourville* places two figures in dresses atop a grassy cliff overlooking the English Channel, and the eye arrives at them almost by accident — they are not the painting's subject so much as its anchor. The composition is split roughly at a diagonal, looking out at a 45-degree angle that provides a view of the bluff in a step formation, rising from lower left up to the top right.
The grass is composed of short, brisk, curved brushstrokes that appear to quiver in the breeze, and subtly modified versions of the same strokes and hues suggest the women's wind-whipped dresses and shawls and the undulation of the sea.
X-radiographs show that Monet reduced the rocky outcropping at the far right to balance the proportions of sea and sky.
The figures serve as a focal point, yet their diminutive sizes and unobtrusive colouring make them a soft one, allowing the viewer's gaze to drift along to the rest of the painting.
In February 1882, Monet went to Normandy to paint — one of many such expeditions he made in the 1880s, and also a retreat from personal and professional pressures.
His wife Camille had died three years earlier; he had entered into a domestic arrangement with Alice Hoschedé; and France was in the midst of a lengthy economic recession that affected his sales.
In addition, the artist was unenthusiastic about the upcoming seventh Impressionist exhibition — divisions within the group had become pronounced — and he delegated responsibility for his contribution to his dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel.
The two young women strolling in the painting are probably Marthe and Blanche, the eldest Hoschedé daughters.
During his 1882 trips, Monet was already thinking of his coastal paintings serially — an approach he would fully realise in the celebrated cliff series executed between 1896 and 1897.
Today, *Cliff Walk at Pourville* is considered one of Monet's most important coastal works, serving as an example of the artist's transition into the mature Impressionist method of capturing a moment in time and inviting the viewer to inhabit it.
As wall art, this painting rewards space and natural light. The horizontal sweep of cliff, sea, and sky gives it an expansive quality that suits a generous wall — a living room or hallway where daylight shifts across the surface. A sense of movement suggested by painterly calligraphy connotes the energy of nature and the effect of a summer wind upon figures, clothing, land, water
