Waterlilies

Claude Monet (1840-1926) would leave behind some 200 paintings of the waterlily pond he had built at his home in Giverny, which were painted from about 1899 to the year of the artist’s death. These works were unique in that Monet composed them solely of an expanse of water, as if cut out of the pond’s surface, with no horizon or waterline and no sky— elements normally considered essential parts of a landscape painting. In this painting of the pond surface dotted with waterlilies, the branches of the weeping willows and poplars that line the banks of the pond are reflected in deep green running down the right and left sides of the canvas, while the sky is reflected as a light green expanse in the center. It is a mysterious world in which waterlilies floating on the pond and the trees and skies reflected on the pond’s surface exist together and reality intersects with illusion, all within the quintessential flatness of the water surface. In the year Monet painted this painting, he also worked on about 15 paintings of similar composition in vertical format and canvas size. From the difference in the colors used in these works, we see Monet’s signature method of painting the same scene in different lights at different times of day.