101 years ago, almost to the day, the weather here in Normandy was terrible, if Alice’s letter to Germaine Salerou is anything to go by. Our winter that has just passed has been long and hard – even the seasoned locals agree. And if it was not for the green shoots I am now seeing in my garden, I would be full of sighs too. The forecast for today was welcome news indeed. So in need of a day out I thought I would spend today going along the Normandy coastline visiting some of the main Monet and impressionist related sites – a perfect day out for the guests who are lovers of impressionism while staying at Basse Copette. And of course there are lots of other wonderful things to see and do along the way as well.

So, I left Basse Copette with a big flask of tea and headed straight to the Sunday marchée at the nearby town of Blangy, picked up a cooked organic chicken, got myself a fresh baguette from the Boulangerie (and of course a patisserie or two), and off I went.

First stop was the city of Dieppe, a favourite haunt of Camille Pissarro’s. The commanding 15th century castle is now a museum and regularly has wonderful exhibitions. This summer, as part of the Normandy Impressionist 2010 festival, the museum will be hosting The Impressionists in Dieppe.

But, I particularly wanted to see the small fishing villages further south along the Norman coast, namely Pourville, Varengeville, Fecamp, Les Petites Dalles and Etretat. While living in Argenteuil, after his return from England, Monet concentrated on the Seine River with its pleasure boast, bridges and riverbanks, as well as his own gardens. In September 1879, after a long illness, Monet’s wife Camille died. In 1880 Monet’s brother took him to the small seaside village of Les Petites Dalles. They were there for about two weeks, and Monet painted four canvases. This brief stay started a 7 year focus on the Normandy Coast. As a group of paintings, those Monet created of the Normandy coast during the 7 years of the 1880s far outnumber all the others.

It was a glorious spring day to visit the seaside towns. The wind was a bit biting on the coast, but it was sunny, and good to join others who were having their winter fugg blown away. In trying to get a good photograph of the Church of Varengeville I nearly got caught by the rapidly rising tides. But, I was just time to pick a litre of mussels for an evening meal. I was in for a pleasant surprise at Etretat, the town’s spring fair. The French ‘do’ town fêtes well, and they are always a pleasure for all. And, after climbing to the top of Porte d’Aval, it was back home to Basse Copette for a mussel in calvados and saffron soup with fresh crusty French bread.

Seeing all the sites that inspired Monet’s paintings of the Normandy coast in one day is a great day out – and you really do get a different feel for these paintings having been to the sites. But more about all that in posts to come.

*Quote from page 56, Monet’s Garden in Giverny inventing the landscape. 2009. Musées des Impressionnismes, Giverny.

“I count on doing a large canvas of the cliffs of Etretat, although it is certianly bold of me to do that after after Courbet who did it admirably, but I will try to do it differently …” Claude Monet, January 1883

Claude Monet spent a great deal of time at the coastal fishing town of Étretat, painting the white cliffs, the fishing boats and some inland scenes in all light and weather. His first series of paintings of this area were made during an extended visit to Etretat in 1883-1884. Then again in September 1885 he returned to Etretat with his family, and stayed on in the town once they had returned to Giverny in October until early January, with some brief sojourns to Paris and Giverny.

Perhaps the most iconic of images from these two periods at the coastal town are those of the needle and arch, known as the Porte d’Aval. The painting above, Fishing Boats Leaving the Port, Etretat now in the Musée de Dijon and painted during his second stay in the town, has the needle and the arch in the background. This canvas is thinly painted, and was never exhibited in Monet’s lifetime, leading many to suggest that he intended to do more work on it.

Etretat’s main source of income was tourism and catering to holidaymakers, and the local travel guides would suggest to visitors that they watch out for the fishing fleets depart or return as a ‘local event’.

I strongly recommend a wonderful book written by Robert L. Herbert, published in 1994 by Yale University Press, entitled Monet on the Normandy Coast: Tourism and Painting, 1867-1886.