Claude Monet Church At Varengeville Grey Weather

Claude Monet, a french painter, painted the Church at Varengeville, Grey Weather, in the year 1882, in the midst of his artistic career. Varengeville-sur-Mer is a small commune in the Seine-Maritime of the north-western region in France. The painting is oil paint on a modest sized canvas about 25 by 32 inches. This oil landscape hangs directly on the wall, at a horizontal orientation, and is in a simple ornate frame. Monet’s painting is currently located at the Speed Art Museum, in Louisville, KY. In the upper left corner of the painting, sits a small Mariners’ church, where the hazy sky peaks out and radiates light from being the building. The church is a mixture of purple, blue and gray pigments with bright greens and mauves providing some highlights. To the right of the church there is a body of water, The English Channel, with several small triangular shapes, that appear to be sail boats. Despite the fact that there are not people directly in the painting, the boats represent the presence of humans and their involvement with nature. The foreground shows two very dark trees with their leaves blowing in the wind. The trees are emerging from the …show more content…
Instead of changing the subject matter in each painting, he would only slightly changing the lighting and the way the view saw it. He painted over five different paintings including the Church at Varengeville. In a smaller series, he painted three versions of the scene, changing the time of day and atmospheric conditions, thus changing the coloration and lighting in each. Monet recreated the church in a different light, at a different moment in time. He was concerned with the optical effects of light and conveying the passage of time and the ephemeral moment. Although each painting is the same church, they all depict different emotions and have different feelings. A painting of a church at noon on a sunny day will have a very different effect than a church at on a gloomy