The Church in Moret (full sunlight)

In 1893 Claude Monet was turning the front of Rouen cathedral into a famous series, the same stone painted over and over as the light shifted. That same year a poorer and far less celebrated Impressionist tried the idea on a humbler subject. Alfred Sisley, English by nationality but French almost all his life, had settled in the village of Moret-sur-Loing, and from an upstairs window across the street he painted its church, Notre-Dame, about fourteen times, in morning light, in grey weather, in full sun. He was nearly broke and had applied for French citizenship. He died early in 1899, before it was granted, and before the recognition Monet already had.