Rouen Cathedral, West Façade

Rouen Cathedral, West Façade is one panel of the great series in which Claude Monet painted the Gothic front of the cathedral at Rouen over and over from the same window, watching the stone change as light moved across its face. Completed in 1894, the series was begun two years earlier, and each canvas dissolves the solid architecture into a shimmering veil of colour and air. This version, caught as the weakening sun rakes the western face, keeps the great portals and towers recognizable through a scumble of ochre, blue, and grey that is as much about light itself as about the monument.