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拍品專文
During the last twenty-five years of his life, Monet devoted himself almost single-mindedly to depicting the lily pond that he had fashioned at Giverny, producing an astonishingly complex series of around two hundred canvases. Widely hailed as landmarks of late Impressionism, these paintings constitute some of the most innovative and influential works of Monet's entire oeuvre. Paul Tucker asserts, "They stand as eloquent witness to an aging artist's irrepressible urge to express his feelings in front of nature and also attest to his persistent desire to reinvent the look of landscape art and to leave a legacy of significance" (Monet in the 20th Century, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1998, p. 14). The present painting, which was featured in the inaugural exhibition of the Nymphéas series at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1909, is part of a subset of fourteen canvases which are distinguished by their strong color contrasts, aggressive brushwork, and novel vertical format (Wildenstein nos. 1703-1716). Depicting a stream of light weaving its way through a shadowy tangle of reflected foliage, this group of paintings is among the boldest and most experimental of the entire water lily series. As Tucker has written,
These are without doubt some of the most compelling paintings Monet had yet produced. The dark reflections of the foliage are surprisingly active in their gestures and depths. They also occupy most of the canvas, as if the unseen world and its uncharitable rhythms have become more important than what is tangible and confirmable. These are painters' pictures, in which everything is contested--lights and darks, shapes and forms, surface and sky. They energized Monet's ensemble of Water Lilies and reestablished his boldness as an artist (ibid., pp. 47-48).
Monet and his family had moved to Giverny in April of 1883. Situated at the confluence of the Seine and the Epte about forty miles northwest of Paris, Giverny was at the time a quiet, picturesque farming community of just 279 residents. Upon his arrival there, Monet rented a large pink stucco house on two acres of land. When the property came up for sale in 1890, Monet purchased it at the asking price of 22,000 francs, "certain of never finding a better situation or more beautiful countryside," as he wrote to Durand-Ruel (Letter 1079). An enthusiastic gardener all his life, Monet immediately began tearing up the existing kitchen garden and planting lush flower beds on the gentle slope in front of the house. Three years later, he acquired an adjacent plot of land and applied to the local government for permission "to install a prise d'eau in order to provide enough water to fresh the pond that I am going to dig for the purpose of cultivating aquatic plants" (Letter 1191). By the autumn of 1893, Monet had converted nearly one thousand square meters into a lavish lily pond, spanned by a wooden footbridge and ringed by an artful arrangement of flowers, trees and bushes (figs. 1-2). Describing the water garden in its finished form, one visitor reported, "You enter the aquatic garden over an arched bridge covered with wisteria in June-- the fragrance is so heavy that it is like going through a pipe of vanilla. The clusters of white and mauve fall like fanciful grapes in the water, and the passing breeze harvests the aroma" (quoted in R. Gordon and A. Forge, Monet, New York, 1988, p. 213).
Although Monet created the lily pond in part to fulfill his passion for gardening, he also intended it as a source of artistic inspiration. In his petition to the Préfet de l'Eure for permission to build the pond, Monet specified that it would serve "for the pleasure of the eyes and also for the purpose of having subjects to paint" (Letter 1191). Nonetheless, Monet was initially reluctant to paint the water garden. He made only ten images of it before 1899, possibly because he was waiting for the plantings to mature. In 1899-1900, he painted eighteen views of the lily pond, and from thereafter it was the predominant subject of his art. He later recalled, "It took me some time to understand my water lilies. A landscape takes more than a day to get under your skin. And then all at once, I had the revelation--how wonderful my pond was--and reached for my palette. I've hardly had any other subject since that moment" (quoted in S. Koja, Claude Monet, exh. cat., Osterreichische Galerie, Vienna, 1996, p. 146). Monet worked particularly feverishly on the series from 1905 until 1908, preparing for the exhibition at Durand-Ruel's gallery. During this interval, he completed more than sixty views of the aquatic garden, or about one every three weeks, all of which concentrate exclusively on the surface of the pond, without the compositional aid of banks, bridges, or background foliage.
The paintings of the lily pond from 1905-1908 can be divided into three groups. Within each, Monet devised variation after variation, altering the arrangement of the blossoms, increasing or reducing the amount of reflected material, and exploring a wide array of lighting effects. The paintings in the first group, executed in 1905-1907, are characterized by large, horizontally striated islands of lilies, juxtaposed with undulating reflections of trees and sky (fig. 3). Other compositions from 1907, including the present example, are bolder and more challenging (fig. 4). The majority of these employ a vertical format, sliced down the middle by a narrow band of light. On either side are dense eddies of reflected foliage and floating clusters of lilies, rendered with vigorous brushstrokes and a rich, dark palette. In the final group of canvases, dated 1908, Monet retains the central stream of light, but replaces the strong contrasts of the preceding sequence with delicate tonalities and an ethereal effect (fig. 5). Describing the second sequence of paintings, Tucker writes:
The vertical panels are the most venturesome. Instead of the lulling calm that the others possess, these vertical scenes are sliced down the middle by a meandering trail of sky, on either side of which are rivulets of reflected foliage and truncated clusters of flowers. The sky initially appears as a narrow but brilliantly colored intrusion that energizes the upper half of the picture at the same time as it divides it. As it descends generally on angle to the right, it meets what is often the largest group of lily pads. The cluster sits almost exactly where the descending trail of light turns back to the left, which is where the foliage on either side spreads out to reveal more of the reflected sky. Most often, that occurs slightly above the middle of the scene. This is a critical juncture, as it is here that the pictures change dramatically. From this point to the bottom, the lily pads float alone or in groups on the lighter sections of the water, often seeming to occupy a different plane from their counterparts above. They also are generally quite sketchily rendered as if proximity at this moment in the early twentieth century demanded an emphasis on process and expression, not an allegiance to mimetic description. Allowed to spread across the lower half of the picture, the sky also appears less constrained, something which is echoed in the way the light dissipates as it descends, losing the intensity it possessed at the top of the canvas until it finally turns dark by the time it reaches the bottom edge (Claude Monet, Life and Art, New Haven, 1995, p. 194).
Monet himself was particularly pleased with this group of paintings, the present canvas among them. In April of 1907, before beginning this sequence, he had postponed the proposed exhibition at Durand-Ruel's gallery, explaining to the dealer that he did not yet have enough successful pictures to show (Letters 1831-1832). For the next five months, he seems to have been wholly absorbed in his work, writing only six letters the entire time. In September, having completed the new set of fourteen canvases, he wrote to Durand-Ruel with atypical enthusiasm, inviting him to Giverny to see the most recent paintings (Letter 1837). Although Durand-Ruel feared that the new works, which were moodier and more meditative than Monet's earlier views of the lily pond, would be less popular with contemporary collectors, the artist nonetheless chose to include twelve of the fourteen versions in the inaugural exhibition, including the present one.
When the Nymphéas show finally opened in May of 1909, it was an unqualified success. Forty-eight views of the lily pond were included, more than Monet had ever exhibited from a single series. The critical response was overwhelmingly positive; the Paris correspondent for Burlington Magazine, for instance, proclaimed, "One has never seen anything like it. These studies of water lilies and still water in every possible effect of light and at every hour of the day are beautiful to a degree which one can hardly express without seeming to exaggerate. There is no other living artist who could have given us these marvelous effects of light and shadow, this glorious feast of color" (quoted in ibid., p. 196). By the end of the year, nineteen of the forty-eight paintings had been sold either to Durand-Ruel or to his rivals, the Bernheim-Jeune brothers, netting Monet an extraordinary total of 272,000 francs.
The first owner of the present picture was Henri Canonne, a Parisian pharmaceutical tycoon and leading collector of Impressionist paintings. Canonne owned more than forty paintings by Monet in the course of his career, including seventeen canvases from the Nymphéas series. These were acquired mainly between 1920 and 1926, the same years that Monet was painting his Grandes Décorations, an ensemble of twenty-two mural-sized Nymphéas panels eventually installed in the Orangerie.
Of the fourteen paintings from the 1907 Nymphéas sequence, half are housed today in major museum collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (W. 1703); Musée Marmottan, Paris (W. 1714); Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo (W. 1715); and Gøoteborg Kunstmuseum, Sweden (W. 1716).
(fig. 1) Monet's lily pond at Giverny. BARCODE 24769662
(fig. 2) Monet in his garden at Giverny, summer 1926. BARCODE 24769655
(fig. 3) Claude Monet, Nymphéas, 1905. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. BARCODE 24769648
(fig. 4) Claude Monet, Nymphéas, 1907. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. BARCODE 24769631
(fig. 5) Claude Monet, Nymphéas, 1908. Sold, Christie's, New York, 1 November 2005, Lot 22. BARCODE 24769624
These are without doubt some of the most compelling paintings Monet had yet produced. The dark reflections of the foliage are surprisingly active in their gestures and depths. They also occupy most of the canvas, as if the unseen world and its uncharitable rhythms have become more important than what is tangible and confirmable. These are painters' pictures, in which everything is contested--lights and darks, shapes and forms, surface and sky. They energized Monet's ensemble of Water Lilies and reestablished his boldness as an artist (ibid., pp. 47-48).
Monet and his family had moved to Giverny in April of 1883. Situated at the confluence of the Seine and the Epte about forty miles northwest of Paris, Giverny was at the time a quiet, picturesque farming community of just 279 residents. Upon his arrival there, Monet rented a large pink stucco house on two acres of land. When the property came up for sale in 1890, Monet purchased it at the asking price of 22,000 francs, "certain of never finding a better situation or more beautiful countryside," as he wrote to Durand-Ruel (Letter 1079). An enthusiastic gardener all his life, Monet immediately began tearing up the existing kitchen garden and planting lush flower beds on the gentle slope in front of the house. Three years later, he acquired an adjacent plot of land and applied to the local government for permission "to install a prise d'eau in order to provide enough water to fresh the pond that I am going to dig for the purpose of cultivating aquatic plants" (Letter 1191). By the autumn of 1893, Monet had converted nearly one thousand square meters into a lavish lily pond, spanned by a wooden footbridge and ringed by an artful arrangement of flowers, trees and bushes (figs. 1-2). Describing the water garden in its finished form, one visitor reported, "You enter the aquatic garden over an arched bridge covered with wisteria in June-- the fragrance is so heavy that it is like going through a pipe of vanilla. The clusters of white and mauve fall like fanciful grapes in the water, and the passing breeze harvests the aroma" (quoted in R. Gordon and A. Forge, Monet, New York, 1988, p. 213).
Although Monet created the lily pond in part to fulfill his passion for gardening, he also intended it as a source of artistic inspiration. In his petition to the Préfet de l'Eure for permission to build the pond, Monet specified that it would serve "for the pleasure of the eyes and also for the purpose of having subjects to paint" (Letter 1191). Nonetheless, Monet was initially reluctant to paint the water garden. He made only ten images of it before 1899, possibly because he was waiting for the plantings to mature. In 1899-1900, he painted eighteen views of the lily pond, and from thereafter it was the predominant subject of his art. He later recalled, "It took me some time to understand my water lilies. A landscape takes more than a day to get under your skin. And then all at once, I had the revelation--how wonderful my pond was--and reached for my palette. I've hardly had any other subject since that moment" (quoted in S. Koja, Claude Monet, exh. cat., Osterreichische Galerie, Vienna, 1996, p. 146). Monet worked particularly feverishly on the series from 1905 until 1908, preparing for the exhibition at Durand-Ruel's gallery. During this interval, he completed more than sixty views of the aquatic garden, or about one every three weeks, all of which concentrate exclusively on the surface of the pond, without the compositional aid of banks, bridges, or background foliage.
The paintings of the lily pond from 1905-1908 can be divided into three groups. Within each, Monet devised variation after variation, altering the arrangement of the blossoms, increasing or reducing the amount of reflected material, and exploring a wide array of lighting effects. The paintings in the first group, executed in 1905-1907, are characterized by large, horizontally striated islands of lilies, juxtaposed with undulating reflections of trees and sky (fig. 3). Other compositions from 1907, including the present example, are bolder and more challenging (fig. 4). The majority of these employ a vertical format, sliced down the middle by a narrow band of light. On either side are dense eddies of reflected foliage and floating clusters of lilies, rendered with vigorous brushstrokes and a rich, dark palette. In the final group of canvases, dated 1908, Monet retains the central stream of light, but replaces the strong contrasts of the preceding sequence with delicate tonalities and an ethereal effect (fig. 5). Describing the second sequence of paintings, Tucker writes:
The vertical panels are the most venturesome. Instead of the lulling calm that the others possess, these vertical scenes are sliced down the middle by a meandering trail of sky, on either side of which are rivulets of reflected foliage and truncated clusters of flowers. The sky initially appears as a narrow but brilliantly colored intrusion that energizes the upper half of the picture at the same time as it divides it. As it descends generally on angle to the right, it meets what is often the largest group of lily pads. The cluster sits almost exactly where the descending trail of light turns back to the left, which is where the foliage on either side spreads out to reveal more of the reflected sky. Most often, that occurs slightly above the middle of the scene. This is a critical juncture, as it is here that the pictures change dramatically. From this point to the bottom, the lily pads float alone or in groups on the lighter sections of the water, often seeming to occupy a different plane from their counterparts above. They also are generally quite sketchily rendered as if proximity at this moment in the early twentieth century demanded an emphasis on process and expression, not an allegiance to mimetic description. Allowed to spread across the lower half of the picture, the sky also appears less constrained, something which is echoed in the way the light dissipates as it descends, losing the intensity it possessed at the top of the canvas until it finally turns dark by the time it reaches the bottom edge (Claude Monet, Life and Art, New Haven, 1995, p. 194).
Monet himself was particularly pleased with this group of paintings, the present canvas among them. In April of 1907, before beginning this sequence, he had postponed the proposed exhibition at Durand-Ruel's gallery, explaining to the dealer that he did not yet have enough successful pictures to show (Letters 1831-1832). For the next five months, he seems to have been wholly absorbed in his work, writing only six letters the entire time. In September, having completed the new set of fourteen canvases, he wrote to Durand-Ruel with atypical enthusiasm, inviting him to Giverny to see the most recent paintings (Letter 1837). Although Durand-Ruel feared that the new works, which were moodier and more meditative than Monet's earlier views of the lily pond, would be less popular with contemporary collectors, the artist nonetheless chose to include twelve of the fourteen versions in the inaugural exhibition, including the present one.
When the Nymphéas show finally opened in May of 1909, it was an unqualified success. Forty-eight views of the lily pond were included, more than Monet had ever exhibited from a single series. The critical response was overwhelmingly positive; the Paris correspondent for Burlington Magazine, for instance, proclaimed, "One has never seen anything like it. These studies of water lilies and still water in every possible effect of light and at every hour of the day are beautiful to a degree which one can hardly express without seeming to exaggerate. There is no other living artist who could have given us these marvelous effects of light and shadow, this glorious feast of color" (quoted in ibid., p. 196). By the end of the year, nineteen of the forty-eight paintings had been sold either to Durand-Ruel or to his rivals, the Bernheim-Jeune brothers, netting Monet an extraordinary total of 272,000 francs.
The first owner of the present picture was Henri Canonne, a Parisian pharmaceutical tycoon and leading collector of Impressionist paintings. Canonne owned more than forty paintings by Monet in the course of his career, including seventeen canvases from the Nymphéas series. These were acquired mainly between 1920 and 1926, the same years that Monet was painting his Grandes Décorations, an ensemble of twenty-two mural-sized Nymphéas panels eventually installed in the Orangerie.
Of the fourteen paintings from the 1907 Nymphéas sequence, half are housed today in major museum collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (W. 1703); Musée Marmottan, Paris (W. 1714); Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo (W. 1715); and Gøoteborg Kunstmuseum, Sweden (W. 1716).
(fig. 1) Monet's lily pond at Giverny. BARCODE 24769662
(fig. 2) Monet in his garden at Giverny, summer 1926. BARCODE 24769655
(fig. 3) Claude Monet, Nymphéas, 1905. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. BARCODE 24769648
(fig. 4) Claude Monet, Nymphéas, 1907. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. BARCODE 24769631
(fig. 5) Claude Monet, Nymphéas, 1908. Sold, Christie's, New York, 1 November 2005, Lot 22. BARCODE 24769624