Honfleur is a quaint seaside town on the Normandy coast. It is a popular tourist attraction today, and deservedly so. There are traditional narrow, cobble-stone streets that are still lined with old timber-frame houses that lead away from a 17th Century harbour. A wonderful setting for a few days holiday, or a great day out. Monet was also inspired by Honfleur, and that part of the Normandy coast.

Monet visited Honfleur a number of times, and painted a handful of canvasses there. Above is his painting of the bell-tower, Le clocher Sainte Catherine, a wooden belfry and bell-ringer’s home, that unusually stands apart from the church.

Today the bell-tower is an annex of the Eugène Boudin Museum. The main galleries of the museum that houses an impressive collection of pre-impressionist and impressionist paintings are located in the Augustine church and a few modern extensions. The bell-tower houses work of a religious nature, such as sculptures and other local religious items.

The Museum has 92 works by Eugène Boudin, who was born in Honfleur. And it was Boudin as Monet’s mentor who encouraged the young Claude Monet to paint outdoors. This wonderful collection of Boudin’s is displayed alongside that of his friends, such as Mozin, Monet, Dubourg, Jongkind, Pécrus, Courbet, and Cals; all well-known local artists from the 19th century.

Honfleur is well worth a visit, as is a visit to the Musée Eugène Boudin – for more information about the museum, such as prices and opening dates and times, follow this link.

There are over 25 hotels in Honfeur to choose from should you wish to take a break in this wonderful seaside town on the Normandy coast.

I could go on talking about Monet for hours! I’m absolutely fascinated by this artist and by the way he painted. His paintings about his gardens in Giverny are mystical and mysterious, but also experimental and he kept studying on them. He could dive into a subject and paint it over and over to make it look exactly like the vision he had in mind. Monet was one of the first abstract painters, he was keen on experimenting and creating a new art movement. Arne Quinze

The city of Rouen is one of a number of towns and cities in Normandy taking part in one of the greatest festivals in celebration of Impressionism and the Impressionist artists in 2010. To mark this occasion in a grand way, Arne Quinze was commissioned to create an installation; he created Camille for Rouen, a tribute to Camille Doncieux, Claude Monet’s wife.

This amazing installation has been constructed out of ’sticks’ of wood that creates a kind of canopy over the Boieldieu Bridge that spans the River Seine. The official launch of Arne Quinze’s Camille in Rouen was at the beginning of July, and it will remain in place until the end of August.

Read more about the artwork in an interview on the Irenebrination: Notes on Art, Fashion and Style website with Arne Quinze about Camilleand Rouen here. (From where the above quote from Quinze was taken.)

I took the following photographs on Bastille Day, 14 July 2010, in the afternoon and then in the evening during the spectacular firework display that lasted for some 25 minutes.

Are you planning on staying in Rouen, and in need of a hotel? The website Booking.com has more than 25 Hotels in Rouen for you to choose from. Booking.com is one of the leading international hotel comparison websites, offering a choice of hotels from 1 to 5 star. Making a reservation is easy, and so is altering it, should you need to.

Of all the 90 or so paintings Claude Monet is said to have done while staying in Pourville during the winter and again in the summer of 1882, my favourite is definitely The Church of Varengeville, Effect of Morning (above). For me, it is one of those paintings that so epitomises the impressionist project, from the manner in which it was created to the finished product’s title, ‘the effect of morning’.

The church at Varengeville form the beach, today.

I had visited the dramatically placed cliff-top church at Varengeville before, but from above. Last weekend I wanted to get to see the church from the vantage point Monet had painted this particular canvas in 1882. I all but failed, I think. For a start, Monet painted the above canvas during summer when the sun plays with the crumbling chalky white cliffs so characteristic of this part of the Normandy coast; my visit (photograph above) was at the very start of spring. Also, the tide was just coming in as I was heading to the spot where Monet must have studied his subject. I was strangely torn between wanting to collect some fresh mussels from the exposed mussel beds and getting a decent photograph of the church from the beach (above). You will be pleased to know that first I set to getting as good a photograph as I could given the lighting conditions, and only then did I literally grab a few mussels for supper.

The thirteenth century church of St. Valery, Varengeville.

Much of the character of the church at Varengeville rest in its cliff-top location; it is certainly in a very dramatic position, and I feel Monet has captured this quality with equally dramatic effect his painting; it looks as if the church is about to fall into the sea. The apparently fragile church of St. Valery dates back to the thirteenth century. The cemetery has a sixteenth-century sandstone cross and contains the tombs of some famous Frenchmen, including Porto-Riche, Albert Roussel, Georges Braque and Paul Nelson. The cubist artist, Georges Braque, created a stained-glass window for the church that depicts the Tree of Jesse.

The white, chalk cliffs at Varengeville – the brown stains are created by water leeching down through the chalk.

Because of the time of year, my photograph of the church atop the cliff above does not adequately capture the character of the cliff face. The cliff face is literally dripping with brown stains created by oxidising water leeching through the chalk.

Tides allowing, I thoroughly recommend both a visit to the charming coastal town of Varengeville (besides the church there is also the Bois des Moutiers, a 12-hectare park conceived by Guillaume Mallet in 1898 that contains a house designed by the English architect Sir Edwin Lutyens with gardens designed by Miss Gertrude Jekyll. The park is said to have the biggest collection of hydrangeas in the world, with over a thousand varieties.) and a walk along the beach below from the Pointe d’Ailly.

Writing about the recovery of Poland’s only Monet painting, The Beach at Pourville (Plage de Pourville), recently got me doing more research on his time on the Normandy coast. Most people, with even the slightest interest in Monet’s work, are aware of his house and gardens in Giverny and that he made a few paintings along the Normandy coast. But the time Monet spent on the Normandy coast over a period of 7 years produced a group of paintings that far outnumber all others. And one of his more prolific years was 1882 when he spent a few months at Pourville in Winter, and then returned there later with his family in the summer.

This photograph looks over the town of Pourville, southwards towards the cliffs and other settings Monet painted at Varengeville and Petit Ailly in 1882. The photograph was taken from a point above the cliffs in the middle of Monet's painting of Pourville beach above.

Pourville in Monet’s time was a small fishing village on the Norman coast just south of the city of Dieppe. Today there is a good supplier of oysters, but other than that it is a place where the better off have their summer houses, or commuters to Dieppe live.

In 1882 Monet stayed in Pourville for 7 very productive weeks starting early February. Encouraged by the reception of his Norman coast at the seventh Impressionist exhibition in March, Paris, he returned again that year in the summer, but this time bringing his and Alice’s families with him. From early February to early April, and then again from mid-June to early October, Monet painted over 90 paintings in and near to Pourville.

Looking at his letters to his agent of that year, it is generally accepted that he was driven by financial necessity. None the less, he still produced some of his more well known, and highly thought after paintings, including the various paintings of the fisherman’s and coastguard’s cottages on the cliffs between Pourville and Varengeville, the numerous cliffs he painted at Pourville, Pointe d’Ailly and Varengeville, and of course the church of Varengeville.

Looking northwards towards Pourville (and on to Dieppe in the distance) from the beach below much the same point above the cliffs where Monet must have painted ‘Plage de Pourville’ above.

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.

Monet’s Plage de Pourville, painted in 1882 and stolen in 2000 from National Museum in Poznań, Poland, was recently recovered by the Polish police and presented to an eager press-pack in Poznań. And yesterday, 1 March, the man who stole Poland’s only painting by Monet was placed under psychiatric observation.

Yesterday, Monday 1 March 2010, a Polish court ordered an unemployed construction worker, known as Robert Z., who allegedly stole Monet’s Plage de Pourville (a small village on the Normandy coast), to be placed under psychiatric observation. “Psychiatric experts will have four weeks to observe Robert Z. and prepare their opinion,” Krystyna Blaszczak, spokeswoman for the Poznan regional court told AFP yesterday.

The 41-year-old suspect, who has been named only by his first name for legal reasons, reportedly visited the museum in Poznań to admire the painting just days before the painting was stolen. Robert Z. has admitted to cutting the canvas out of its frame and replacing it with a fake. He then hid stashed the painting in a wardrobe at his parent’s house in the southern Polish city of Olkusz, without them even knowing about it.

The Polish police recovered the painting on 12 January 2010 by tracing fingerprints left at the scene of the crime. According to a museum spokesperson, the artwork has been kept in a good condition and has not suffered any visible damage.

The painting had been valued by insurers at about 740 000 Euros. If found guilty, the 41 year old faces up to 10 years in prison.

Two women of the National Museum of Poznan hold the painting Plage de Pourville by Claude Monet during a presentation to media at the National Museum in Poznan, Poland, 13 January 2010.

Monet’s Plage de Pourville, National Museum in Poland, was stolen on 19 September 2000 and recovered 12 January 2010. The thief cut the poorly-protected painting out of its frame and replaced it with a forgery. Plage de Pourville is the only painting by Claude Monet in a Polish art collection.

Monet’s painting of the Plage de Pourville during a presentation to media in Poznan, Poland, on 13 January 2010 after its recovery by Polish police the day before.

Photographs © European PressPhoto Agency

“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.