Weeping Willow by Claude Monet – Kimbell Art Museum

Weeping Willow Series

Weeping Willow, by Claude Monet, depicts a Weeping Willow tree growing at the edge of his water garden pond in Giverny, France.

Monet had painted ten Weeping Willow paintings by 1919. A selection below comes from the following Museums:

Weeping Willow by Claude Monet – Kimbell Art Museum
Weeping Willow by Claude Monet – Musée Marmottan Monet
Weeping Willow by Claude Monet – Columbus Museum of Art
Saule Pleureur by Claude Monet – Musée Marmottan Monet

Weeping Willow by Claude Monet (Kimbell Art Museum)

Weeping Willow by Claude Monet at the Kimbell Art Museum is one of a series of Monet paintings of this Weeping Willow.

The Weeping Willow paintings are characterized by shadowy and writhing forms, express his grieving mood. These paintings were his mournful response to the tragedy of World War I.

During the war, Monet’s gardens at Giverny were emptied of the people he knew as his family and household staff, was called into service, or moved away from the advancing German army.

Weeping Willow

Title: Weeping Willow
Artist: Claude Monet
Year: 1918-1919
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: Height: 99.7 cm (39.2 ″); Width: 120 cm (47.2 ″)
Accession: AP 1996.02
Museum: Kimbell Art Museum

Weeping Willow by Claude Monet (Musée Marmottan Monet)

Weeping Willow by Claude Monet (Musée Marmottan Monet) was among the final few easel-scale paintings that Monet made after World War I started in 1914.

Monet had painted ten Weeping Willow paintings by 1919. Monet failing eyesight was best suited for artworks in larger formats.

Monet could hear artillery fire during the war, but he refused to leave, preferring to share the fate of his gardens.

The Weeping Willow paintings are characterized by shadowy and writhing forms, express his grieving mood.

Weeping Willow

Title: Weeping Willow
Artist: Claude Monet
Year: 1918-1919
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Accession: 5080
Museum: Musée Marmottan Monet

Weeping Willow by Claude Monet (Columbus Museum of Art)

This Weeping Willow, by Claude Monet, depicts a willow tree at the edge of Monet’s water Lilly pond.

The weeping willow tree was located on the bank of Monet’s water garden, with its water lilies.

The tree’s trunk, its cascading branches, and its reflection can be seen in the mural-scale Nymphéas canvases that were his focus from 1914 until his death.

Weeping Willow

Title: Weeping Willow
Artist: Claude Monet
Year: 1918
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: Height: 51.6 ″ (131.1 cm); Width: 43.4 ″ (110.3 cm)
Accession: 1991.001.041
Museum: Columbus Museum of Art

Saule Pleureur by Claude Monet (Musée Marmottan Monet)

The Weeping Willow by Claude Monet is one of around 400 species of deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.

Willows are cross-compatible, and numerous hybrids occur, both naturally and in cultivation. The weeping willow is a hybrid of Peking willow (Salix babylonica) from China and white willow (Salix alba) from Europe.

The Willow in Art and Culture

The Willow tree is used for making charcoal for drawing and in living sculptures. Living sculptures are created from live willow rods planted in the ground and woven into shapes.

Willow stems are used to weave baskets and three-dimensional sculptures. Willow stems are also used to create garden features.

In China, people carry willow branches with them on the day of their Tomb Sweeping Festival.

Willow branches are also put up on gates or front doors to help ward off the evil spirits that wander on Qingming.

In traditional pictures of the Goddess of Mercy Guanyin, she is often seated on a rock with a willow branch in a vase of water at her side.

The willow is a popular subject in many East Asian nations’ cultures, particularly in pen and ink paintings from China and Japan.

Willow trees are prevalent in many traditional folklore and myths.

Weeping Willow

Title: Weeping Willow
Artist: Claude Monet
Year: 1918 and 1919
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Accession: 5081
Museum: Musée Marmottan Monet

Claude Monet’s Weeping Willow

Claude Monet

Oscar-Claude Monet was a founder of French Impressionist painting, and the term “Impressionism” is derived from the title of his painting “Soleil Levant” or “Impression, Sunrise,” which was exhibited in 1874.

Monet adopted a method of art in which he painted the same scene many times to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons.

Monet is known for having produced a series of paintings, in which all the versions consist of the same subject and perspective.

Examples include his series of the “Valley of the Creuse” series and his famous series of “Haystacks” and “Water Lilies” paintings.

From 1883 Monet lived in Giverny, where at his home, he developed a garden landscape that included the lily ponds that would become the subjects of his best-known works.

In 1899 he began painting the water lilies, firstly with a Japanese bridge as a central feature, and later in the series of large-scale paintings, with the water lilies as the main feature. This series occupied him for the last 20 years of his life.