Art Institute of Chicago

The Customs House at Varengeville

Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926)

Date

1897

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

France

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Claude Monet painted the customs house at Varengeville, on the Normandy coast of France, four times in 1882 and four more times in 1897. On each occasion he chose a similar vantage looking down on the small structure, which appears to grow out of the cliffside. The dimensions of this version are nearly identical to those of the other three canvases from the second visit. Here, Monet increased the amount of white in his paints to capture more nuanced atmospheric effects. He also experimented with techniques to animate the surface, at times scraping down or wiping away the still-soft paint to expose underlying colors. In the water, for example, breaks in the pale-gray paint reveal a bright green beneath, which the artist accentuated with additional touches of a similar green on top.

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