Rouen Cathedral, West Façade, Sunlight, 1894 by Claude Monet, oil on canvas

In late January or early February 1892, Monet rented rooms across from Rouen cathedral. He remained until spring, painting its looming façade many times, most often as we see it here, close up and cropped to the sides. The next winter he returned to paint the cathedral again, making in all more than thirty views of it. But it was not so much the deeply carved Gothic façade that was Monet's subject as it was the atmosphere—the enveloppe—that surrounded the building. "To me the motif itself is an insignificant factor," Monet said. "What I want to reproduce is what exists between the motif and me."