Criqueboeuf Church, Normandy

A dark tower and long roof rise beyond a still pond, where the building appears again in a softened reflection. In Homer Dodge Martin’s Criqueboeuf Church, Normandy , architecture forms the principal mass within an extensive landscape. Vegetation gathers around its walls, but the pale sky and open water give the building room to stand apart.

LACMA dates its canvas 1893 and records its place of making as the United States. The subject came from Martin’s Normandy years, while family testimony traces its development through his last New York studio and completion in St. Paul. The illustration here is the historical monochrome image published by Carroll in 1913, rather than LACMA’s modern photograph. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

A church beside a reflective pool

The church occupies the right of center, with its tower forming the strongest vertical. The main roof extends toward the right, while lighter passages near the base interrupt the darker upper mass. The building is readily recognizable without being detached from the growth around it.

The pond spreads across the near and middle ground. Its edge curves inward from the left, giving the water an uneven opening rather than a simple rectangular foreground. Near vegetation makes a dark lower margin, while lighter water leads the eye toward the church’s reflection.

Low buildings on the left provide another scale of architecture. Their pale walls and darker roofs sit beneath trees and remain much less commanding than the tower. The church belongs to a setting with neighboring structures, not to an empty enclosure cut off from habitation.

Carroll’s description places the church, surrounding growth and reflective pond at the center of the picture’s effect. He presents the scene as secluded and restful, emphasizing the relationship between the building and its setting. That is a historical response whose basis can be followed through the arrangement itself. ^[3]

Architecture as a mass in the landscape

The tower’s height matters partly because most of the surrounding forms are lower. Nearby trees interrupt the horizon, but none has quite the same weight or clear vertical emphasis. The roof carries the architectural mass across the picture, connecting the tower with a broader, lower shape.

The sky remains visible around the building. Its pale field makes the tower’s upper outline legible, while darker vegetation obscures portions of the lower walls. The church appears more firmly separated from the atmosphere above than from the earth and growth below.

This changing clarity gives the structure more than one role. From a distance, it is a strong silhouette; with closer attention, lighter wall passages and irregular edges draw it back into the landscape. Martin does not need to render every architectural feature equally for the building to feel substantial.

The paintings overview places this work beside his lakes and coasts. The church adds a particularly weighty human structure to those landscape interests. Its proportions organize the setting while the surrounding sky, water and vegetation prevent architecture from becoming the whole subject.

Water, vegetation and the open sky

The reflected tower extends downward toward the viewer, but its shape is interrupted by horizontal water marks. The reflection is recognizable while remaining less stable than the building above. The pond makes architecture available as both a solid mass and a pattern upon a surface.

The vegetation helps establish the pond’s edges. Dense nearer growth gives way to a lower bank at the far side, while scattered trees rise behind and beside the church. The water gathers these forms into a simpler, more continuous field without erasing their differences.

Carroll describes gray walls and red roofs largely covered with green ivy, together with varied low flowers and evening cloud colors. Those are his published observations, distinct from the light-and-dark information in the monochrome illustration. His account helps explain why the building could remain strongly defined while its surface belonged to the surrounding vegetation. ^[3]

The print cannot supply an exact record of the original palette. It still preserves the contrast between dark architectural mass and pale open sky, the pond’s broad reflection and the darker foreground margin. Those relationships provide a substantial basis for close looking without assigning a separate symbolic meaning to each plant or wall opening.

A place remembered after France

Elizabeth locates the church near Villerville and Pennedepie, within the countryside between Honfleur and Trouville. Her memoir associates it with a pond and grassy enclosure where Martin also found subjects for a farm picture and a deserted manor. The setting was part of a familiar local network of walks and neighboring places. ^[2]

The remembered subject remained active after their return to America. Elizabeth states that Martin began the church picture in his last New York studio, occupied from 1890 until June 1893, and completed it afterward in St. Paul. The painting’s French geography and American execution are therefore complementary parts of its history. ^[2]

Mather similarly describes the church among the unfinished canvases Martin took with him when he moved to St. Paul in June 1893. He records its completion and successful sale early in that final period. These accounts make the painting an important link between the New York studio years and the work carried on in Minnesota. ^[10]

The France and Normandy account follows the broader sequence of residence and remembered subjects. Here the church’s solidity belongs to a landscape reconstructed through continued work, rather than to a demonstrated single sitting before the pond.

Church, farm and manor as distinct pictures

Carroll lists the church as number fifty-one and Normandy Farm as number fifty-two, explicitly associating their subjects with the same neighborhood. Elizabeth’s memoir also places the deserted manor beside these motifs. Their proximity gave Martin several ways to organize architecture, vegetation and water. ^{[3] [2]}

Elizabeth’s memoir also reproduces a church drawing, a reminder that Martin treated the motif in more than one medium. Its appearance there does not establish an exact preparatory sequence for the oil painting. ^[2]

The contrast with Old Manor of Criqueboeuf is especially clear. There the pale house is partly screened by taller trees, and its dark openings become small accents within the growth. In the church picture, the tower and roof establish a more dominant mass above the pond.

The Met dates Old Manor about 1882–92, while LACMA dates its church canvas 1893. These are separate works with distinct museum identities, even though reflection and the same regional setting connect them. The Met’s scholarly catalogue considers the group within Martin’s continuing development of Normandy subjects after his return. ^{[7] [1] [14]}

The Met’s scholarly catalogue adds another comparison, linking the actual-and-reflected arrangement in Old Manor with Eugène Boudin’s treatment of the Criqueboeuf church. It proposes that Martin may have known Boudin’s picture. This is a qualified connection between works, not evidence of a meeting or instruction by Boudin. ^[14]

The comparison brings the shared locality into a wider artistic context. A church beside water could interest different painters through the relationship between a recognizable structure, its reflected image and the surrounding atmosphere. It also allows Martin’s decisions to be considered without making his canvas a straightforward record of architectural features.

The comparisons reveal variation rather than a fixed formula. A low house behind trees asks the eye to search through interruptions; a substantial tower above water gives it a more immediate point of orientation. The neighborhood supplied related motifs, while the paintings give each a particular balance.

The 1893 canvas and its later collection

LACMA’s current record identifies the church painting as oil on canvas, measuring 64.7 by 96.5 centimeters, accession M.90.159. Its gift credit names Anthony E. Battelle. The modern museum record supplies the present institutional identity and measurements. ^[1]

Carroll’s 1913 entry records a lower-right signature and the date 1893, then names the William T. Evans collection in 1900 and Samuel Untermyer’s collection at the time of publication. These are historical ownership statements. They should not be read as a complete account of every transfer between the early collections and LACMA. ^[3]

The historical catalogue also printed measurements that differ from those now supplied by LACMA. Its illustration preserves the church composition, but the older figures do not replace the museum’s current dimensions. Keeping the two descriptions distinct avoids turning a measurement discrepancy into an unsupported claim about another version. ^{[3] [1]}

The illustration’s history is separate again. This article reproduces the image published in Carroll’s book, with its original monochrome print character. A historical reproduction can preserve valuable evidence of composition while remaining a different photographic object from a modern museum image.

A familiar Normandy subject within Martin’s late work

Mather regarded the church among Martin’s best-known paintings. Its place in his account reflects the importance of Normandy subjects within the painter’s later reputation, even when the canvases were developed across the Atlantic. ^[10]

In discussing Normandy more generally, Mather noticed that Martin often represented habitation through buildings and distant settlements rather than prominent figures. He included the Criqueboeuf church among those signs of a countryside long occupied by people. That reading gives the architecture a place within landscape experience; it does not establish a specific devotional program intended by Martin. The building can retain its familiar religious identity while also functioning through scale, silhouette and reflection. ^[10]

The painting also brings the viewer close to ordinary habitation. Neighboring buildings, a pond and enclosing growth provide a particular setting, while the tower supplies a durable landmark. The scene’s quietness emerges from how these elements remain together, rather than from the absence of human traces.

The biography follows the working life around this late achievement. In the church landscape, the main experience remains concrete: an upright building finds a second shape in water, vegetation partly absorbs its walls, and the pale sky gives its darker outline room to hold the view.