Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926)
Mouth at the Seine at Honfleur, 1865
Oil on canvas
The Norton Simon Foundation

About the Painting:

French artist Claude Monet (1840–1926) is one of the founders of Impressionism, a 19th-century art movement. Impressionists like Monet used unmixed colors and small brushstrokes to capture the light and create an “impression” of the subject they were painting at a given moment. This painting was one of Monet’s first major paintings, painted nine years before the first Impressionist exhibit. In it we see the beginnings of his characteristic loose brushwork, and the viewer is given the impression that we are there with him in the moment. However, unlike his later Impressionist paintings, which were painted outdoors, this piece was painted back in his studio, based on drawings he had made earlier at the harbor.

Here Monet has placed us, the viewers, on a jetty looking across the water at a collection of fishing boats in the harbor at Honfleur, a town on the Normandy coast, which can be seen in the distance. The upper two-thirds of the painting shows the sky roiling with clouds. A strong wind fills the sails of the boats and stirs the water, which froths with waves. Without ever nearing the beach, we, the viewers, can smell the salt water, feel the wind on our faces and the rocking of the waves beneath us.