“Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond” by Claude Monet

“Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond” by Claude Monet is a monumental triptych portraying a water-lily pond, from Monet’s garden in Giverny, with the sky and clouds reflecting off the lily pond. Monet aimed to give:

“the illusion of an endless whole, of water without horizon or bank.”

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

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

Claude Monet painted nearly 250 paintings in his series of “Water Lilies.”  The paintings depict Monet’s flower garden at his home in Giverny and were the main focus of Monet’s artistic production during the last thirty years of his life.

Many of the works were painted while Monet suffered from cataracts. His “Water Lilies” paintings can be found in many museums across the globe.

Claude Monet

Oscar-Claude Monet was a founder of French Impressionist painting, and the term “Impressionism” is derived from the title of his painting Impression, “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, all 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.

Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond

• Title:              Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond
• Artist:            Claude Monet
• Year:              1920
• Medium:       Oil on canvas, three panels
• Dimensions:
  • Each Panel6′ 6 3/4″ x 13′ 11 1/4″ (200 x 424.8 cm)
  • Overall 6′ 6 3/4″ x 41′ 10 3/8″ (200 x 1276 cm)
• Museum:     MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, NYC

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
  • Water Lilies (Honolulu Museum of Art)
  • Farmyard in Normandy
  • The Basin at Argenteuil
  • A Cart on the Snowy Road at Honfleur
  • Water Lilies, (National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo)
  • Camille Monet on a Bench
  • The Houses of Parliament (Effect of Fog) – (MET)
  • “Houses of Parliament, London” (Art Institute of Chicago)
  • “The Houses of Parliament, Sunset” (National Gallery of Art, DC)
  • London, Houses of Parliament. The Sun Shining through the Fog
  • “Seagulls, the River Thames and the Houses of Parliament” (Pushkin Museum)
  • Haystacks at Scottish National Gallery
  • Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn) at Art Institute of Chicago
  • Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer) at Art Institute of Chicago
  • “Meules, milieu du jour” (National Gallery of Australia)
  • “Wheatstacks, Snow Effect, Morning” (Getty Museum)
  • Garden at Sainte-Adresse
  • Poppy Field in a Hollow near Giverny
  • The Gare St-Lazare (The National Gallery, London)
  • “La Gare Saint-Lazare” (Musée d’Orsay)
  • “Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare” by Claude Monet (Art Institute of Chicago)
  • Le Pont de Argenteuil (The Argenteuil Bridge)
  • Impression, Sunrise
  • Japanese Bridge Paintings by Claude Monet – Musée Marmottan Monet
  • Water Lilies at the Musée Marmottan Monet
  • Gardens at Giverny Paintings at the Musée Marmottan Monet
  • Weeping Willow Series by Claude Monet
  • La Grenouillère
  • Bathers at La Grenouillère
  • Waterloo Bridge Series
  • La Japonaise

Water Lilies – Claude Monet

“Water-Lilies” – Nympheas by Claude Monet, The Museum of Modern Art

A Virtual Tour of the Museum of Modern Art, (MoMA), NY

• “Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond” by Claude Monet
• “The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh
• “Broadway Boogie Woogie” by Piet Mondrian
• “Le Grand Nu” by Amedeo Modigliani
• “The Sleeping Gypsy” by Henri Rousseau
• “Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth
• “La Goulue arriving at the Moulin Rouge” by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
• “Gas” by Edward Hopper
• “The Dream” by Henri Rousseau
• “The Moon and the Earth” by Paul Gauguin

Monet’s Water Lilies

Claude Monet’s ‘Nymphéas’

Monet, Water Lilies

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“It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.”
– Claude Monet

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Photo Credit: 1) By Wikipedia Loves Art participant “trish” [CC BY 2.5 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons; Wikipedia Loves Art participant "Joey_B" / CC BY-SA (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)