A time-series of Monet's Rouen Cathedral paintings.
Fortunately for our project, Claude Monet was careful to note the times of day portrayed by his Cathedral paintings. By combining the historical information from Monet's notes with our own observations of the sun's course across the cathedral's façade, we were able to sequence Monet's paintings from dawn to dusk. In this animation, we present twenty-four of Monet's Cathedrals, ordered from early morning to sunset.
Here, Monet's paintings are projected onto the surface of the cathedral model from the (recovered) positions from which they were painted, and are then viewed from the front. The black regions, as in the other painting images we present, are the areas of the Cathedral's geometry that Monet did not paint, and for which we therefore have no texture map. These regions differ from painting to painting because Monet painted the cathedral from several different positions, and also because he chose to frame the cathedral in different ways.
The sequence begins with the sun rising behind the cathedral, the Rouen morning interpreted by Monet in muted browns and greens. As the sun moves higher in the sky and over in front of the cathedral, the afternoon colors play out across the surface in yellows, oranges, and intense blues. Finally, as the sun sets in the evening, we can see the shadows of the buildings opposite the cathedral creeping up the façade, and Monet's palette shifts to muted blues and violets.
A user of the Rouen Revisited kiosk would experience a sequence similar to this if she positioned her view near the front of the façade, set the kiosk to display paintings (versus new photographs or archival photographs), and then scrubbed slowly through the "time of day" interface.