The Water Lily Pond

Golden greens and warm ochre tones spread across this pond scene, where lily pads drift as little dabs of pink, blue, and orange paint. Claude Monet made this one of many studies of his water garden at Giverny, the country home in northern France where he spent years shaping ponds, planting flowers, and following the light as it changed. Though the date is listed as 1899, the wild and loose brushwork points to his later life, when his sight was weakening and his painting turned freer and more daring. Dark reflections of trees and reeds stretch down through the water like faint shadows, blurring the border between what floats and what is mirrored below.

Monet cared more about the mood of a passing moment than about painting a sharp, tidy picture, which sits at the heart of Impressionism. He loved working out in the open air, coming back to the same view over and over to catch the sun at different hours. The water garden became his entire universe near the end of his life, and he returned to it endlessly, sometimes on huge canvases meant to fill whole rooms. Up close the surface reads as a jumble of gold and green streaks, but from a few steps away it settles into a calm, glimmering pond, exactly the effect he chased.