Le village de la Roche-Blond, Effet du soir

The painting that evoked the most discussion at the eighth and final exhibition of the impressionists in 1886 was Un dimanche après-midi à l’Ile de la Grande Jatte (Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jatte, 1884-86) by Georges Seurat (1859-1891). In this painting, Seurat systematized the color theory and distinctive brushstrokes of the impressionists by filling the canvas with an orderly series of dots. The work caused controversy among critics, but it provided strong a stimulus to the rest of the contemporary art world. Meanwhile, Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) had turned his back on the momentary approach of the impressionists and started painting images that had a sense of solidity and continuity about them. Even Monet, who had been the driving force behind the impressionist movement, was searching for his own path again. Right about that time, the critic Gustave Geffroy (1855-1926) invited Monet to the Creuse Valley, about three hundred kilometers to the south of Paris. Monet only intended to spend about two or three weeks there, but he ended up staying over three months. During that time, he completed approximately twenty-four paintings, fourteen of which he submitted to a large-scale joint exhibition with François Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) in June 1889.
In this painting, we find none of things that had interested Monet in the past – no shimmering water, no trembling clouds, no bustling urban dwellers. Monet had described the landscapes of the Creuse Valley as “terribly dark” and “gloomy.” Perhaps the landscapes cast their melancholy shadow over him as he attempted to embark in a new artistic direction. Critics generally responded to Monet’s new direction with wonder, and they praised the “unparalleled dignity” and “uncommon degree of finish” of his recent work.