Water Lilies by Claude Monet

Water Lilies by Claude Monet

No bank, no sky

There is no edge to this pond. Monet has left out the bank, the sky and the horizon and painted only the surface of the water, on a canvas that is nearly square. Lily pads, flat ovals of green and lilac, gather at the lower left and in bands across the top and right, with a few pink and pale yellow flowers among them. The rest is reflection: the dark shapes of trees on the far bank, and a pale blur of sky and cloud that runs down the middle of the picture like a path through the lilies.

The garden he made to paint

Monet bought his house at Giverny in 1890 and three years later began the water garden, digging a pond, planting water lilies and building a Japanese-style bridge. He painted it for the rest of his life, some 250 pictures of water lilies, ending with the great murals in the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. This canvas belongs to a group made between 1903 and 1908.

Where it hangs

The painting is in the Art Institute of Chicago, in the Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection, and measures 89.9 by 94.1 centimetres.

About this print

Made from a 3,000-pixel photograph of the original, enough to print sharply at up to about 20 inches on its longest side.

Sources: Art Institute of Chicago · Wikidata Q20267671 · Wikimedia Commons