Hôtel des roches noires, Trouville

During the summer of 1870, Claude Monet set up his easel outside the fashionable Hôtel des Roches Noires in Trouville, a lively seaside town on the coast of Normandy. He had just married Camille Doncieux, and the newlyweds were spending their honeymoon in this popular beach resort. The painting shows well-dressed vacationers strolling the promenade, parasols raised against the summer sun, while a huge flag ripples across the sky and smaller banners flutter along the street. Sunlight bounces off the pale hotel facade, and the whole scene hums with the easy pleasure of a holiday by the sea.

This is Monet right at the birth of Impressionism, painting with fast, loose brushstrokes that chase the feeling of a moment instead of fussing over details. The figures are little more than quick dabs of paint, yet they seem to move and mingle across the walkway. His real subject, as always, was light: the way it warms the building's stone and cools the shadows stretching across the ground.

What gives this bright picture a bittersweet edge is what came next. Just weeks later, the Franco-Prussian War erupted, forcing Monet to flee with his family to London. That makes this sunny snapshot a farewell of sorts, the last happy scene before life turned uncertain.