루앙 대성당, 정문과 달반 탑, 정오

To make this, Monet barely looked at the cathedral the way a worshipper would. In 1892 and 1893 he rented rooms on the far side of the square in Rouen, at one point a corner of a ladies' clothes shop where he worked behind a screen while customers came and went, and he set up several canvases at once. As the light shifted he moved from one to the next, chasing the same stone façade through the hours. He made more than 30 of them. This one takes the portal and the tall Tour d'Albane at midday, when the sun flattens the carved stone into a screen of pale gold and shadow. He worked the paint into thick crusts, almost a relief of its own, then carried the canvases back to his studio to finish them together in 1894 so the whole series would hold as one changing day.