Rouen Cathedral, Portal, Morning Light

In the winter of 1892 and again in 1893, Monet rented a room across the square from Rouen Cathedral and set up several canvases at once, switching from one to the next as the daylight shifted. He cared less about the Gothic architecture than about what an hour of sun did to it. This is the west front early in the day, when low light catches the carved stone of the portal and leaves its depths in shadow. Back in his studio he kept reworking the paint through 1894, building the surface up until it sits on the canvas nearly as thick and pitted as weathered stone. Out of about 30 such views he chose 20 to show in Paris in 1895, where the painters Pissarro and Cezanne came to admire them.