The Customs House at Varengeville
Claude Monet·1897
Historical Context
The Customs House at Varengeville records a small stone building on the Normandy coast near Varengeville-sur-Mer, a clifftop location overlooking the English Channel where Monet worked during several of his Normandy campaigns in the 1880s. He had first gone to Étretat and Varengeville in 1882, drawn by the dramatic clifftop scenery. The coastguard's or customs lookout building, isolated on the cliff edge above the sea, offered a subject combining architecture and nature in an atmosphere of exposure and isolation quite different from his river and garden subjects.
Technical Analysis
The small building is set against an expansive sky and sea, its modest architectural mass dwarfed by the natural elements around it. Monet renders the cliff grasses and scrub with vigorous, gestural strokes while the sea and sky are broadly and atmospherically treated. The colour of the sea approaches Monet's most saturated blues and greens.
