À propos de l’œuvre
Le Bloc, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · Fresselines · 1889 · W1228
The Block, study of rocks in the Creuse W1228hand painted reproduction
A red and purple rocky outcrop fills almost the entire field, dotted with dark blocks and dominated by a thin strip of blue sky. Painted in the Creuse in 1889, The Block is a 72.4 × 91.4 cm oil on canvas preserved in the Royal Collection at Clarence House and listed as Wildenstein 1228.
Look at the work
The rock becomes a portrait of matter and light
Monet places the viewer facing the slope, without rivers or distant horizons. The ridge rises gently from left to right; a few branches and clouds appear only in the upper band.
Burnt orange, red, purple, green and blue fragment the rock. The light outcrops are opposed to almost black hollows, but each shadow remains colored. The thick touch gives the relief an almost tactile presence.
The framing refuses the panorama: the rock mass advances to the edge of the canvas and imposes its material as the main subject.
Composition, touch and light
What Monet builds behind the impression of snapshot
Three precise elements allow us to understand this composition and the essential difficulties of faithful reproduction.
A radically close composition
The slope occupies more than four-fifths of the format. This choice removes the usual landmarks from the landscape and focuses the eye on terrain accidents.
Rocks built without visible preparatory drawing
The volumes arise from the opposition between hot and cold touches. Orange and ocher advance; purple, blue and green dig the cracks.
A decisive step before the big series
The Royal Collection recalls that the twenty-four paintings created around Fresselines announce the methodical series of Meules, Poplars and Rouen Cathedral.
Reference image
Read this specific version
Only one exact image of W1228 is used. The real WebP measures 1049 × 829 px and maintains the best reliable public definition, without artificial enlargement.
Preserve the orange-red cast
It must remain crossed by greens and purples. A uniformly brown rock would remove the luminous vibration which makes up the identity of W1228.
Keep the strip of sky very narrow
It gives the scale and inclination of the ridge. Enlarging it would transform the painting into a panoramic landscape, contrary to Monet's framing.
Respect the variety of blocks
Each projection has a different temperature and direction of touch. Their diversity constructs the relief without hard contour.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
The Royal Collection documents Study of rocks, the Creuse: Le Bloc, oil on canvas from 1889, 72.4 × 91.4 cm, RCIN 406495 and Wildenstein 1228.
Presented with Rodin in June 1889
The painting is one of fourteen landscapes of the Creuse shown at the Georges Petit gallery during the joint exhibition of Monet and Auguste Rodin.
A work offered to Georges Clemenceau
Monet gave Le Bloc to his friend in 1899. Clemenceau gave him this nickname, also linked to the title of the political newspaper he founded.
Acquired by Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mother
In the middle of the 20th century, the work joined the small group of modern paintings in its collection, now part of the Royal Collection.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- The Wildenstein 1228 version
- The rock mass in very close-up
- The orange, purple and green colors of the slope
- The thin strip of sky and the branches of the ridge
Work sheet
| Title | The Block, study of rocks in the Creuse W1228 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1889 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 72.4 × 91.4 cm |
| Orientation | Horizontal |
| Conservation | Royal Collection, Clarence House, London, United Kingdom |
| Inventory | RCIN 406495 · Wildenstein 1228 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
This powerful work is suitable for a living room, dining room or office. A pale terracotta wall, gray blue or deep green and a dark frame reinforce its relief.
