On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt

A woman in a striped blouse rests on a shady riverbank, her back to us, looking out over the still surface of the Seine. This is likely Camille Doncieux, the woman who shared Claude Monet's life and later became his wife. Across the water sit a handful of pale houses tucked beneath rolling hills, with a small boat moored nearby and everything doubled in the mirror-like reflection below. Monet painted this quiet corner near Bennecourt in 1868, a moment of easy summer calm.

The way it is painted matters just as much as what it shows. Monet worked with fast, loose strokes, more interested in catching sunlight and the lazy warmth of the afternoon than in polishing every leaf and shingle. That approach felt daring back then, and within a few years it would help launch Impressionism, the movement Monet is remembered for founding. The dabs of green in the foliage and the broken patches of color in the water hint at the bold experiments still to come.