Four Re-Renderings from Monet's Point of View

Below are several renderings of the Rouen Cathedral façade from a point of view very near the point from which Monet painted:

• The first is synthesized from photographs taken in the mid-1890's;
  
• The second is synthesized from a painting of the façade by Claude Monet, made between 1892 and 1894;
  
• The third is a blend of the first two, showing the alignment of the Monet rendering with the photographic rendering;
  
• The fourth is synthesized from photographs taken in January 1996.

Click on the images or scroll down to see larger versions.

The black "rips" seen in many of the other re-rendered Monet paintings we present are almost non-existent here. This is because in this instance, we project Monet's painting from a virtual point in space very close to the point from which it was originally painted. Nevertheless, the painting does not appear quite in its original form: it appears trapezoidal rather than rectangular because, in the course of re-projection, we have "perspectivized" Monet's otherwise isometric view.