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SECULARIZATION & MODERNITY
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RESOURCES
Rouen Cathedral (Fog)
1868
Claude Monet
Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany
Among the most famous series of a single object in art history, Monet’s thirty-one canvases of the Rouen Cathedral façade are justly famous for their experimental well known. For a view of the complete series, sequenced on a sun-dial, click here; a helpful introductory discussion of the series can be found at theartwolf.com. It bears pointing out the (perhaps obvious) point that Monet’s choice of a motif appears to be driven solely by formal-aesthetic considerations. That it should have been the façade of the Rouen Cathedral rather than some other iconic building no longer imports any liturgical or religious meanings. Moreover, Monet’s artistic decision to explore in nuce the changes of light effectively underscores the incidental function of the building itself. Here, as in the contemporary, influential work of Émile Durkheim, religion no longer constitutes a reservoir of salient narrative references—let alone an authoritative framework for an individual’s or polity’s take on the world. Rather, it has become a focal point of formal-aesthetic, historicist, or sociological inquiry.
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Copyright © 2008-2009 Thomas Pfau