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Claude Monet (artist) French, 1840 - 1926 The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil, 1880 oil on canvas Overall: 151.5 x 121 cm (59 5/8 x 47 5/8 in.) framed: 177.8 x 147.3 x 9.5 cm (70 x 58 x 3 3/4 in.) Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection 1970.17.45 |
Monet planted gardens wherever he lived. When he rented this house at Vétheuil, he made arrangements with the owner to landscape the terraces, which lead down to the Seine. The boy with the wagon is Monet’s young son, and on the steps behind him are other members of his extended household.
On the path, the brilliant sunlight is dappled with shadow that falls in blues, plums, and various greens. Figures and faces are defined—briefly—with color. The large flowerpots were Monet’s, and he took them with him each time he moved, using them in other gardens. They are “blue and white” only in our understanding; up close they are blue and green where they reflect the grass behind them, elsewhere tinged with gold or pink.
By the early 1880s, when this work was painted, Monet was increasingly interested in the painted surface itself and less concerned with capturing a spontaneous effect of light and atmosphere. The very composition of this painting, with its high horizon, traps our eye in the canvas; even the path is blocked in the distance by the rising steps. We are forced back to the surface, where the paint is textured and heavily layered. At close range, these brushstrokes seem less descriptive than decorative.