“Water Lilies” by Claude Monet

“Water Lilies” by Claude Monet portrays the waterlily pond, from Monet’s garden in Giverny, with the sky and sun reflecting off the lily pond.

Monet attempted to capture the continually changing qualities of light, color, water, sky, and lilies by dissolving all the elements into:

“a peaceful meditation in the center of a flowering aquarium.”

Claude Monet painted nearly 250 paintings in his series of “Water Lilies.” 

The constant changes in the water surface, based on the direction of the sun during the day, the changing seasons, and the changing weather continued to sustain Monet’s interest in his water lilies pond.

This painting depicts Monet’s flower garden at his home in Giverny.

The garden and pond were the main focus of Monet’s artistic production during the last thirty years of his life. Many of these works were painted while Monet suffered from cataracts.

His “Water Lilies” paintings can be found in many museums across the globe.

Close-up details of this work, which was created nearly twenty years after he started his water lilies series of paintings 

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 painting 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 on versions 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, first 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.

Water Lilies

• Title:                Water Lilies
• Artist:              Claude Monet
• Year:                1916
• Medium:         Oil on canvas
• Museum:        National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

Monet’s Water Lilies

Claude Monet

• Name:              Oscar-Claude Monet
• Born:                1840 – Paris, France
• Died:                1926 (aged 86) – Giverny, France
• Nationality:    French
• Movement:     Impressionism
• Notable works:
  • Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond
  • Farmyard in Normandy
  • The Basin at Argenteuil
  • A Cart on the Snowy Road at Honfleur
  • Water Lilies (Honolulu Museum of Art)
  • Camille Monet on a Garden Bench
  • The Houses of Parliament, Sunset (National Gallery of Art, DC)
  • Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond (MoMA)
  • The Houses of Parliament (MET)
  • Water Lilies (National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo)
  • Houses of Parliament, London (Art Institute of Chicago)
  • London, Houses of Parliament. The Sun Shining through the Fog (Musée d’Orsay)
  • Seagulls, the River Thames and the Houses of Parliament (Pushkin Museum)
  • The Gare St-Lazare (The National Gallery, London)
  • “La Gare Saint-Lazare” by Claude Monet (Musée d’Orsay)
  • “Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare” by Claude Monet (Art Institute of Chicago)

“Water Lilies” by Claude Monet

Highlights of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

• “The Burghers of Calais” by Auguste Rodin
• “Water Lilies” by Claude Monet
• “Saint Michael and the Dragon” by Sienese School

Monet – Water Lilies

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“It took me time to understand my waterlilies.
I had planted them for the pleasure of it;
I grew them without ever thinking of painting them.”
-Claude Monet

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Photo Credit: 1) JOM