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The View of Vétheuil is one of the first acquisitions of modern painting made by the new director Hugo von Tschudi in Paris. Julius Meier-Graefe saw the picture in March 1898 in the newly arranged halls of the Nationalgalerie and noted: “This Monet seems to me the most valuable of the French paintings. It is a very rare picture; ... it is a delicate Monet, but in its almost Rococo-like delicateness of line and color it has all the irresistible infallibility of all the paintings by this master.” By describing it in unusual terms as “Rococo-like” Meier-Graefe grasped a characteristic feature of Monet’s art around 1880. Both summer and winter views of Vétheuil are distinguished by a new pastel-like colorfulness. The technique is livelier than in the 1870s; decisive little colored dashes are evidence of the painter’s firm sure brushstroke. This gives some works an almost decorative touch and makes them seem oddly cheerful.

Details

  • Title: View of Vétheuil
  • Creator: Claude Monet
  • Date Created: 1880
  • Physical Dimensions: w100.0 x h60.0 cm
  • Type: Painting
  • Technique and material: Oil on canvas
  • Inv.-No.: A I 551
  • ISIL-No.: DE-MUS-815114
  • External link: Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
  • Copyrights: Text: © Prestel Verlag / Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Photo: © b p k - Photo Agency / Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Jörg P. Anders
  • Collection: Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Purchased 1896 with funds from a donation by Karl von der Heydt
  • Artist biography: Claude Monet was a French artist and founder of Impressionist painting in France. In 1851 he entered the art college where he was taught by Jaques-François Ochard, before meeting Eugène Bodin in 1856, who showed him how to paint in oil. Both artists were influenced by Johan Barthold Jongkind. Monet went to Paris, living there for a number of years and making frequent visits to the Louvre. During this time he got to know other young artists such as Édouard Manet. He became a pupil of Charles Gleyre and started painting outdoors with broken colour and rapid brushstrokes, in a style later known as Impressionism. When the Franco-Prussian War began in 1870, he emigrated to England where he studied the art of John Constable and others. Before returning to France in 1871 he spent several months in the Netherlands which proved a short but highly productive time. During this period he executed several paintings of modern everyday life. From 1880 on, he created a great number of landscape and seascape series, documenting the French countryside and local landscapes of his journeys to southern Europe. During World War I, Monet painted a series of weeping willow trees to pay homage to the French fallen soldiers before dying of lung cancer in 1926. Among his most famous artworks are 'Woman in a Garden' (1867), 'Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies' (1899) and 'Water Lilies' (1914–1919).
  • Artist Place of Death: Giverny, France
  • Artist Place of Birth: Paris, France
  • Artist Dates: 1840-11-14/1926-12-05

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