Artwork · 20th century · Claude Monet

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Water Lilies

Claude Monet1906Oil on canvas89.9 × 94.1 cm

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At a glance

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No shore and no sky, just the surface of a pond with water lilies floating on it, filling the whole canvas.
Claude Monet painted it in oil on canvas in 1906, looking at the pond in his own garden at Giverny, France.
The sky appears only as a reflection in the water, so you keep looking to work out what is above and what is below.

Reading the picture

5 places to look closer

Tap a number on the painting to jump to its note, or a close-up to see that spot in the whole picture.

Zoom into the pink flower near the bottom center. The petals are just a few touches of pink and white, and the base is a few dabs of violet and orange-red. Up close it is a little heap of paint. Step back and it becomes a lily floating on the water.
Now move to the soft, hazy area at the upper left. The dark green streaks hanging downward are trees on the bank, seen upside down in the water. The pale violet patch beside them is a cloud reflected on the surface. In this painting, the only way to see the sky is through the water.
Look at the band of lily pads at the upper right. Pale yellowish-white blossoms are dotted among the light green leaves. The pads stretch across the water in long horizontal strips. Together with the cluster at the lower left, they frame the wide open path of water in the middle.
Zoom into the pads along the lower left edge. They are made with curling, circular strokes, with pink, white and violet laid on top. A red blossom is tucked in among them. These pads are larger and rougher than the distant ones, which tells you they are closest to where you are standing.
Finally, check the lower right corner. In brown paint, Monet signed Claude Monet 1906. The signature seems to float on the surface like everything else in the picture.

When it was painted

In 1906 Claude Monet turned sixty-six, and he was painting the pond at his home in Giverny over and over again. His dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, was waiting to show the new water lily pictures in Paris. Monet kept putting the exhibition off, because he did not think the paintings were ready. This canvas is one of the ones he was wrestling with.

The pond had a story of its own. Monet bought his house and land in 1890. In 1893 he bought a plot across the road and dug the pond there. To feed it from a nearby stream he needed official permission, and some villagers worried that his strange water plants would spoil their water. He got the permit anyway, and in 1901 he made the pond even bigger.

In 1908 Monet wrote to a friend that these landscapes of water and reflections had become an obsession. He admitted that he destroyed some canvases and started others over. Technical study at the Art Institute of Chicago backs him up: this painting shows many significant changes made while he was working on it.

The exhibition finally opened at Durand-Ruel's Paris gallery in May 1909, subtitled a series of water landscapes. Forty-eight water lily paintings hung on the walls, and this one was number 15 in the catalogue. After all the delays, the show was a hit with critics, visitors and buyers alike.

Look again at the wide open path of water in the middle. There are no flowers there at all, only the sky and the trees reflected on the surface. That shifting water was what Monet spent those years chasing.

The painter

Claude Monet

1840–1926

When painting this, the artist was about 66 years old

All paintings by Claude Monet →

More by the same painter

Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare1877

Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer)1890–91

Questions to think about

Look for itWhere can you find the reflected trees and the reflected clouds in this painting?
Why?Why do you think Monet left out the bank and the sky and filled the canvas with nothing but the water's surface?
What about you?If you went to look at the same place every day, the way Monet watched his pond, which spot near your home would you choose, and what do you think would change?

Same period