Le Bassin des Nympheas

Claude Monet's water garden at Giverny fills this 1904 canvas, painted at the country home in France where he spent decades tending his flowers. Pink and white lilies drift across the green pond, and the water doubles as a mirror, catching the leafy banks that rise above it. As a leading Impressionist, Monet cared less about crisp edges and more about the feeling of light and color in a passing moment. The whole scene glows with the soft warmth of a summer day.

His fascination with this pond bordered on obsession. Over the final decades of his life he returned to the lilies again and again, creating around 250 different versions of the same subject. He admitted that the reflections and shifting water were beyond his strength to fully capture, yet he could never bring himself to stop. His fading eyesight during these years helps explain why the later paintings feel hazier and more like a dream. Behind this peaceful pond lay years of hard work digging, planting, and watching, a private corner of the world that became one of the best known subjects in painting.