Vétheuil
Claude Monet (1840 to 1926) · 1879
A small town sits on the far bank of the Seine, its church tower rising above a huddle of roofs, and the whole scene is reflected, broken and shimmering, in the calm water below. This is Vétheuil, a village of a few hundred people about sixty kilometres north west of Paris, where Monet moved in 1878 with his family and the family of his patron Ernest Hoschedé. He was poor, his wife Camille was dying, and yet the paintings he made along this stretch of river are among the most serene of his career. Here it is high summer. The light is bright and hazy, the sky pale blue, and the river almost empty of boats.
Monet painted Vétheuil from the water and from the opposite bank many times, in different seasons and weathers, and this view from the island across to the town is one of the classic ones. Look at the brushwork: short, broken touches of pink, mauve, green and white that describe the reflections without ever drawing them. The houses are suggested by dabs of cream and grey, and the church of Notre Dame de Vétheuil, a medieval building with a Renaissance tower, is the only firm vertical. The foreground shore is a tangle of grass and flowers in quick strokes. There is almost no black in the picture; the shadows are blue and violet.
The painting was bought through the Felton Bequest in 1937 and was one of the first Monets to enter an Australian public collection. It matters because it comes from the period when Impressionism reached its purest form, before Monet turned to the long series of haystacks, cathedrals and water lilies. The Seine at Vétheuil remained a subject he returned to for the rest of his life. The memorable detail is the way the town in the water is almost as solid as the town on the bank, so that the eye keeps sliding between the two.
Did You Know? Monet moved to Vétheuil in 1878 with two families under one roof, including his patron's wife Alice, who later became his second wife.
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