Cultured Calm July: Water-Lilies by Claude Monet

Water-Lilies by Claude Monet (after 1916)
Oil on canvas

I have long been a fan of Monet; ever since I bought my first print of his Japanese Bridge at Giverny and hung it on the wall of my student accomodation.

A recent trip to Giverny, and the fulfillment of a long held dream left me with little choice but to choose his painting of Water-Lilies currently on display at The National Gallery as July’s choice for my monthly series of seasonal paintings available to view at London galleries.

Water-Lilies was painted as part of a series of paintings Monet produced originally to form part of a decorative scheme consisting of a continuous panorama of water and flowers in a circular room.  He began the paintings in 1916 after having a new studio built onto his home at Giverny in which to work on them.

The paintings were intended as a gift to the French nation as a personal war memorial that honoured victory and peace.  He wanted them to offer an immersive experience that enabled the viewer to forget the outside world.

Twenty-two of his water-lily canvases were eventually installed in the Orangerie in Paris, in 1927, the year after his death, in two specially designed oval rooms.  The rest of the large-scale water-lily canvases, of which this is one, remained in Giverny until after the Second World War.

There is no perspective to this painting, there are no trees or edges of the pond to frame it.  It is simply a piece of the whole pond.  It is a painting to stare into. The more you look into it, the more you are drawn down into its depths.  The water-lilies themselves might be seen as mere blurs of colour floating on the surface.

The true size of this painting is vast.  It measures over 2 meters long and almost half a meter tall.  When viewed on this scale, it invites you to dive in, to submerge yourself in the silky depths and float dreamily amongst the lily pads.

Water Lilies is part of the main collection at The National Gallery and can be seen in Room 41.

Previous Cultured Calm Painting Choices

May – Beatrix Potter

April – Duncan Grant

March – Camille Pissarro