The Cliff Walk at Pourville

Monet spent much of 1882 on the Normandy coast at Pourville, a small fishing village near Dieppe, working through a difficult stretch. His first wife, Camille, had died three years earlier, France was in a recession, and his pictures were selling poorly. On the cliff top he painted two young women looking out to sea, probably Marthe and Blanche Hoschede, daughters of the household he was by then living with. The grass is built from short curved strokes that seem to shiver in the wind, and the same restless touch carries into the women's dresses and the water below. Out on the horizon, small sails mark the fishing boats still working while the two figures simply stand and watch.