Turner to Monet For me, a landscape does not exist in its own
right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but its
surroundings bring it to life – the air and the light, which
vary continually … For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere
which gives objects their true value. As he matured as an
artist, Monet returned to the same motif with endless
variations: Rouen Cathedral, poplars, haystacks, waterlilies. It
was only in this way that he could seek to capture differing
effects of light on objects, and changing times of day, as the
nominal theme and composition differed only to a small degree.
In the ice-floe paintings he made in and after the severe winter
of 1892–93, there are even fewer variables, as the dazzlingly
colourful effects of sunlight on vegetation or stone surfaces
have been eliminated. Monet had addressed the subject of ice
breaking up on the Seine – the ‘débacle’ of the title – at least
twice before, in 1868 at Bougival, and in 1879–80 at Lavacourt,
near Vétheuil. The thirteen Give