Claude Monet, light, haystacks and the water garden at Giverny
From caricatures in Le Havre to the great Water Lilies in Paris: how Claude Monet spent more than sixty years chasing light, and gave a whole movement its name almost by accident.
Claude Monet1840 to 1926 · ParisImpressionism
Claude Monet painted the same grainstacks at dawn, at noon and in snow, the same cathedral front in fog and in full sun, the same pond for almost thirty years. He was not repeating himself. He was proving that the subject of a painting can be light itself, and that it never looks the same twice.
From Le Havre to the open air
Monet was born in Paris in 1840 but grew up in the port of Le Havre in Normandy, where his family moved when he was a small child. As a teenager he sold caricatures of local figures. The landscape painter Eugène Boudin noticed his talent and encouraged him to paint outdoors, directly in front of sea and sky, a lesson that shaped the rest of his career.
In Paris in the 1860s he became friends with Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Frédéric Bazille and Camille Pissarro. They wanted to paint modern life and the passing effects of light rather than history and myth. Working , in the open air, had become much easier thanks to portable easels and paint sold in collapsible metal tubes, an invention of the 1840s that let artists carry ready-mixed colour into the fields.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871 he took refuge in London, where he painted the Thames and the parks and saw the work of English landscape painters. Back in France, he settled at Argenteuil on the Seine, where boats, bridges and reflections became favourite motifs.
Impression, Sunrise and the birth of a name
Frustrated by rejections from the , the official annual exhibition in Paris, Monet and his friends organised their own show in 1874, in the former studio of the photographer Nadar on the boulevard des Capucines. Monet included a small view of the harbour at Le Havre in morning mist, dated 1872, under the title Impression, Sunrise.
The critic Louis Leroy seized on the title and mocked the whole group as “Impressionists” in a satirical review. The label was meant as an insult, but the artists soon adopted it, and became the name of the movement. Today the painting hangs in the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris, which holds the largest collection of Monet’s work, much of it bequeathed by his son Michel.
He was proving that the subject of a painting can be light itself.
Series, grainstacks and cathedrals
From 1890 Monet worked increasingly in series: many canvases of a single motif under changing light, weather and seasons. In the fields near his home at Giverny he painted grainstacks, often called haystacks, through late summer, autumn and winter. He kept several canvases going at once and switched between them as the light moved.
In Rouen in 1892 and 1893 he worked from rooms facing the cathedral and painted its west front more than thirty times, then reworked the canvases in his studio. Twenty of them, shown together in Paris in 1895, made the point clearly: the stone stays the same, while the painting is about air, colour and time.
Giverny and the water lilies
In 1883 Monet moved with his large blended family into a rented house in Giverny, a village near the Seine on the edge of Normandy. He bought the house in 1890 and planned its flower garden as carefully as a painting. In 1893 he bought a plot across the railway line, dug a pond fed by a diverted stream, planted it with water lilies and crossed it with a Japanese-style footbridge painted green.
The water garden became his main subject for the last three decades of his life. As the series developed, the banks and the sky disappeared, and the canvases became views straight down onto the water, with clouds reflected among the leaves. In his last years he worked on huge panels designed to surround the viewer, despite serious troubles with his eyesight.
Monet offered the great panels to the French state at the end of the First World War. After his death at Giverny in 1926, eight of them were installed in two oval rooms at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, which opened to the public in 1927. Lit by daylight from above, they still offer one of the most immersive experiences in any museum.
- 1840Born in Paris on 14 November.
- 1872Paints Impression, Sunrise in Le Havre.
- 1874Shows it at the first group exhibition of the future Impressionists.
- 1883Moves into a rented house in Giverny.
- 1890Buys the Giverny house and works on the grainstacks series.
- 1893Buys land for the water garden and creates the lily pond.
- 1926Dies at Giverny on 5 December.
- 1927The Water Lilies rooms open at the Musée de l’Orangerie.
Visiting Giverny
Monet’s house and gardens at Giverny are run by the Fondation Claude Monet and open seasonally, usually from spring to autumn, and they close in winter. The rooms have been restored to look much as they did in his day, with his collection of Japanese prints on the walls, and the gardens are replanted in his spirit.
The garden changes completely through the season, from tulips and irises in spring to water lilies in summer and dahlias in early autumn. Paths are narrow and popular days can be crowded, so arrive early, allow plenty of time, and check the foundation’s own website for current opening dates.
Terms in this article
- En plein air
- French for “in the open air”: painting outdoors, directly in front of the subject, rather than in the studio.
- Salon
- The official annual art exhibition in Paris, whose jury decided which works could be shown.
- Impressionism
- A movement of the 1870s and 1880s that captured fleeting light and modern life with quick, visible brushstrokes.
- Grainstack
- A tall stack of harvested grain sheaves, often called a haystack in English, the subject of one of Monet’s first series.
Readers ask
When can I visit Monet’s garden at Giverny?
The house and gardens are open seasonally, usually from spring to autumn, and close in winter. Each month brings different flowers, from tulips and irises in spring to water lilies in summer and dahlias later in the season. Opening dates can change from year to year, so check the Fondation Claude Monet’s own website before you plan your trip.
Where is Impression, Sunrise today?
Impression, Sunrise hangs in the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris, which holds the largest collection of Monet’s work, much of it bequeathed by his son Michel. The painting is dated 1872 and shows the harbour of Le Havre in morning mist. It gave Impressionism its name after a critic mocked it at the 1874 exhibition.
Why did Monet paint the same subject so many times?
Because his real subject was light. By painting grainstacks, a cathedral front or his lily pond again and again at different times of day and in different seasons, he showed how colour and atmosphere transform a familiar motif. Seen together, the series make the point far more strongly than a single canvas could.
