Claude Monet Gallery

Water Lilies (Agapanthus), c. 1915-26. Creator: Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)

Water Lilies (Agapanthus), c. 1915-26. Monet spent the last thirty years of his life painting the lily pond at his home in Giverny, a small town on the river Seine, just north of Paris. While his initial exploration of the water lily theme (1902-8) produced smaller works more descriptive of a garden setting, the later paintings focus on the water's shimmering surface, indicating the surrounding trees and lush bank only through reflections. Here reflection and reality merge in strokes of blue, violet, and green. Fronds of water plants sway underwater and passing clouds are reflected above. By 1915 Monet had conceived a plan, called his Grande Decoration, for arranging a series of monumental water lily paintings in an oval room, thus creating a continuous panorama that would surround and enclose the viewer in an environment of pure colour. That installation is located in two oval rooms in the Musee de lOrangerie in Paris. Cleveland's painting is the left panel of a three-part variation on this water lily theme. Its companions are now in the St. Louis Art Museum and the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri

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The Red Kerchief, c. 1868-73. Creator: Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)

The Red Kerchief, c. 1868-73. In its early stages, this composition contained two figures seated inside the room on either side of the window. Monet radically altered the composition by painting over the figures. They were replaced by an image of the artist's favorite model---his wife Camille, who passes outside the window in a red cape. Intense light---reflected from the snow-covered landscape---floods the room, obliterating details along the walls and floor. The off-center window frame and the blurriness achieved through sketchy brushstrokes suggest the scanning movement of the artist's eye as he viewed this scene. Contrasted with cold blues and silver whites, Camille's red cape draws the viewer's attention through the glass and into a swift exchange of glances, registering a brief moment in time. This painting evidently held special meaning for Monet, for he kept it with him until his death in 1926

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Stacks of Wheat (Sunset, Snow Effect), 1890/91. Creator: Claude Monet

Stacks of Wheat (Sunset, Snow Effect), 1890/91

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