Water Lilies

Claude Monet, 1916–1919

See it in the 3D Museum View the full image

What you see

There is no bank and no horizon: we look straight down at the water. Long willow branches hang along the left and right sides like green curtains. In the middle, the water mirrors pale clouds and a lilac sky. The lower half fills with round lily pads holding several pink blossoms, and the eye hops from one flower to the next.

Blues, lilacs and violets lead, with greens in the pads and the willow and the pink of the flowers as accents. The paint is generous and loose; each pad is a circle drawn with a few turns of the brush. Seek out the yellowish glow of a reflected cloud halfway up, and the few bright green pads floating near the top.

About Claude Monet

Claude Monet went outdoors to paint light exactly as he saw it at each moment. He painted the same place many times, in the morning, at noon or in fog, to show how colours change. In his garden at Giverny he created a water-lily pond that he painted for thirty years.

All 12 works by Claude Monet