Monet’s Favorite French Cathedral Catches Fire

The 151-meter metal spire of Rouen Cathedral caught fire on Thursday morning. The blaze was contained within hours. The building, parts of which date back over eight hundred years, is currently undergoing extensive restoration work. It is considered a significant example of historic French architecture and was especially beloved by Claude Monet, who famously captured its facade in a series of Impressionist paintings.

Photos taken on Thursday morning showed dark smoke billowing from Rouen Cathedral’s metal spire. The prefecture of the Seine-Maritime department explained that a fire broke out at the tip of the spire, which is encased in plastic due to ongoing renovations. The cathedral was quickly evacuated, and no significant injuries were reported. Around seventy firefighters and forty vehicles were deployed to the site, as were additional firefighting forces from the nearby region of Oise.

The fire was considered contained by Thursday afternoon. According to Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossingol, the origin of the fire “is unknown at this point.” The extent of the damage to the cathedral and its contents is also unknown but does not seem to be extensive. Stéphane Gouezec, a local fire department official, said that “an inventory is being made of works that could be affected” by water damage sustained during firefighting efforts.

Rouen Cathedral’s 800 Years of History

Situated in northern Normandy, Rouen Cathedral is famous for its three towers, each in a different architectural style. The Catholic cathedral was built and rebuilt over a period of over eight hundred years. In the eleventh century, a Romanesque building was constructed on the site. Not long after, when Gothic architecture took hold in Western Europe, a complete reconstruction of Rouen Cathedral was undertaken.

Today, after centuries of renovations, additions, and damages, Rouen Cathedral is a unique combination of Romanesque, Early Gothic, Flamboyant, and Renaissance architectural features. The 151-meter cast-iron spire was added in 1876, briefly making Rouen Cathedral the tallest building in the world until 1880. Today, Rouen Cathedral remains the tallest church in France.

The French Impressionist icon Claude Monet was famously enchanted by Rouen Cathedral. From 1892 to 93, Monet rented space across the street from the cathedral to us as a temporary on-site studio. He obsessively painted the cathedral’s distinctive stone facade at different times of day and in different seasons. On every canvas, Monet aimed to capture a new, ephemeral combination of colors, textures, and light effects.

Monet painted certain subjects serially to explore optical perception and the passage of time across multiple related compositions. After months of painting in Normandy, Monet added finishing touches to the Rouen Cathedral paintings at his home studio in Giverny. As such, most are signed and dated 1894. Today, the paintings belong to prestigious museum collections worldwide, from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.