Water Lilies

In 1893 Claude Monet had a water garden designed in Giverny that was inspired by Japanese examples. For nearly thirty years he devoted himself almost exclusively to the motif of the water-lily pond. The lack of a horizon and spatial depth imparts an air of boundlessness. In this way, combined with his use of free brushwork and expressive colors, Monet became a pioneer of abstraction in the twentieth century.