Edgar Degas, known for his Parisian ballet scenes, surprised even his closest friends when, late in life, he turned his attention to the windswept coast of northern France. Houses at the Foot of a Cliff (Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme) was painted in 1897, at a time when Degas’s eyesight was failing and his palette growing bolder. The work stands out in his career for its landscape focus—an unusual subject for an artist so closely tied to the bustle of the city.

Some contemporaries wondered if Degas, in retreat from Paris, was seeking solace in the quiet isolation of the seaside, far from the salons and the gaze of critics. In this painting, Degas captures the moment when sunlight breaks through a cloudy sky, casting a fleeting glow on the cluster of houses huddled beneath the imposing cliff. The houses, rendered with broad, textured strokes, seem to cling to the earth, dwarfed by the sheer rock face that looms above. The cliff’s ochre and grey tones dominate the composition, while the roofs below offer a patchwork of red and blue—a fragile human presence amid the vastness of nature.

Unlike the precise, delicate lines of Claude Monet’s Normandy coast scenes, Degas’s approach here is rougher, more urgent, as if painted in defiance of time and failing sight. The result is a landscape that feels both observed and remembered, a place filtered through memory and emotion. The exact medium of Houses at the Foot of a Cliff (Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme) remains uncertain, though many believe Degas used a mix of oil and pastel, a technique he favored in his later years. The painting was likely kept in the artist’s studio until his death in 1917, when much of his estate was dispersed at auction.

Unlike his celebrated ballet works, this landscape did not attract immediate fame, but today it is recognized as a testament to Degas’s restless experimentation in his final decade. Now housed in a public collection, it offers a rare glimpse into the private world of an artist confronting change—of place, of vision, and of self.