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Water Lilies (French: Nymphéas [nɛ̃.fe.a]) is a series of approximately 250 oil paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840–1926). The paintings depict his flower garden at his home in Giverny, and were the main focus of his artistic production during the last thirty years of his life.
In his first water-lily series (1897–99), Monet painted the pond environment, with its plants, bridge, and trees neatly divided by a fixed horizon. Over time, the artist became less and less concerned with conventional pictorial space.
Claude Monet. Irises were among Monet’s favourite flowers, and he cultivated many different species, planting them in both his flower garden and his water garden. This is one of approximately 20 views or irises surrounding the banks of the lily pond that Monet painted around 1914–17.
Beginning in 1899, and continuing for the rest of his life, paintings of this pond were the dominant theme of Monet's art. This painting illustrates the fluid, nearly abstract style the artist developed through these water lily paintings.
Water Lilies. Plants, water, and sky seem to merge in Claude Monet ’s evocative painting of his lily pond at Giverny. The disorienting reflections, bold brushstrokes, and lack of horizon line...
Water Lilies. Claude Monet French. 1919. On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 822. One of Monet’s critics described this canvas of 1919 as waterlilies "in full flower assert [ing] themselves … their golden discs encased in purple, against the cloudy waters."
In 1899, he began a series of eighteen views of the wooden footbridge over the pond, completing twelve paintings, including the present one, that summer. The vertical format of the picture, unusual in this series, gives prominence to the water lilies and their reflections on the pond. Listen.
