Fishing boats leaving the harbor, Le Havre

Fishing Boats Leaving the Harbor, Le Havre dates from the early 1870s and belongs to the same series of Le Havre harbour subjects as the famous Impression, Sunrise (1872), the painting whose title gave Impressionism its name. Monet had been observing the port of Le Havre since his boyhood in Normandy — his earliest career ambition was as a caricaturist in Le Havre — and the harbour was his first great subject for capturing the atmosphere of water, sky, and light. The fishing fleet departing at dawn or dusk, with the play of light on water and smoke merging with mist and cloud, became the prototype for his serial investigations of atmospheric effect.

Monet captures the dissolution of forms in early morning or evening haze, boat hulls and masts rendered as suggestions rather than described structures. The water surface is built with horizontal strokes that carry reflected colour from sky and smoke. Tonal contrasts are subdued, forms merging at their edges in atmospheric unity.