“Les Rochers de Belle-Ille”
(after the painting by Claude Monet)

“No beach here—just the sea
swirling in blue

deep blue and green

Both the sea and the rocks
show age

It’s a tired scene of their
coming together

each hour and day

The water’s force, erosion
of all the softest parts

leaving only solid rock

This you could be
crushed upon—the hardest

knowledge of all—

What is impervious to you, quite
solidly indifferent

No escaping the sea

throws you repeatedly on the rocks
of all you’re stupid about—

self-ignorance, deception, lies—

Instead someone calls this a scene,
a landscape, seascape—

yes, but first: crags of the mind, and soul.”¹

In French, the sign along the roadside read simply: DANGER MORTAL! These were posted all along the winding coastal roads going out from the port at Le Palais. They covered most of the island. We visited there with our friend, the painter Holly Hughes and her mother Wanda, who at that time was the studio/office manager for Ellsworth Kelly. Wanda was armed with a map that had been given to her by Ellsworth so that we might find the ‘village’ where he had lived after WWII. Little did we know what a sight we were approaching!

Over the years many artists had found both the isolation and inspiration that they were searching for on Belle-Isle. Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, the actress Sarah Bernhardt and her companion the painter Georges Clairin, the Irish painter John Peter Russell, and of course Ellsworth Kelly were all attracted to this special place.

The colors, which swirled later through the Giverny water-garden series, bring “Tableau Vert” to mind. Although Ellsworth Kelly’s painting was a one-off, his relationship with Monet continued and intensified. Kelly visited and lived in Belle-Isle in 1948-1949, 1965, 1977 and later in 2005.

In 2005, Kelly came back one last time to the island and drew the same subjects, but in a changed style. The rocks are now more than traced shapes.

Regarding his later development Ellsworth Kelly wrote: “In 1951, I had begun to make paintings made up of joined panels, with each color on its own canvas, with only color and form as the content. I wanted to make visually engaging, impersonal works. Seeing the Nymphéas affirmed what I was doing.”²

“The day following the trip to Giverny, I painted Tableau Vert, my first monochrome. I had already made works with many color panels, but to make one color on a canvas was a challenge.”³

Interestingly, this vivacity may come partly because Kelly’s drawing hand in 2005, when he was in his early 80s, was less steady than it had been decades earlier, giving his lines a little shimmy. Also, he seemed to be less intent on distilling abstract essences from actual forms than in staying with the forms themselves, dwelling on their particularities, deliberating over their details.

During the fall of 1886, from 12 September to 25 November to be exact, Claude Monet lived and worked just off the coast of Brittany on Belle-île. During this time he produced a series of 39 paintings, exploring the weather and wildness of this island.

I can only imagine how these artists felt when approaching for the first time, these savage vistas. Steep cliffs that one would most certainly describe as the end of the earth (fin de terre), bays and inlets, needles and rocks that would challenge one’s imagination.

And now, the last word must go to Ellsworth Kelly: “Monet’s last paintings had a great influence on me, and even though my work doesn’t look like his, I feel I want the spirit to be the same.”⁴

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1 Clark, Patricia; Self-Portrait with a Million Dollars; Terrapin Books; West Caldwell, New Jersey; 2020; pp. 36-37.

2 Bois,Yve-Alain and Sarah Lees; Monet/Kelly; 2014; Clark Art Institute; Williamstown, Massachusetts; Yale University Press, New Haven and London; p. 9.

3 Bois,Yve-Alain and Sarah Lees; Monet/Kelly; 2014; Clark Art Institute; Williamstown, Massachusetts; Yale University Press, New Haven and London; p. 9.

4 Bois,Yve-Alain and Sarah Lees; Monet/Kelly; 2014; Clark Art Institute; Williamstown, Massachusetts; Yale University Press, New Haven and London; p. 9.