Water Lily Pond
1900
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
89.8 × 101 cm (35 3/8 × 39 3/4 in.); Framed: 112.4 × 122.6 × 10.2 cm (44 1/4 × 48 1/4 × 4 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
87088
Art Historical Context
Claude Monet’s *Water Lily Pond* (1900) captures the artist at the of his fascination with light, reflection, and the natural world. As a leading figure of the Impressionist movement, Monet had by this time turned almost exclusively to his own garden at Giverny for inspiration. The painting’s modest scale and intimate viewpoint invite viewers to linger on the shimmering surface of the water, where sky, foliage, and blossoms dissolve into one another. Painted in oil on canvas, the work demonstrates Monet’s signature technique of applying loose, layered brushstrokes to suggest rather than defin...
About the Artist
Claude Monet · 1840–1926
Claude Monet, born Oscar-Claude Monet on November 14, 1840, in Paris and raised in Le Havre, Normandy, began his artistic journey as a successful teenage caricaturist. His formal training started at the Le Havre secondary school of the arts in 1851, where he received his first drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard. Around 1858, he met Eugène Boudin, who became his pivotal mentor, introducin...