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Lot Essay
In 1914, Monet began work on a series of paintings he referred to as Les grandes décorations, which depicting the water garden at Giverny. Despite his failing eyesight, this project preoccupied him for the rest of his life and necessitated the construction of an additional studio to accomodate the numerous, oversized canvases.
As Robert Gordon and Andrew Forge have noted, "The work of this period--from 1914 to his death--can be divided into several groups: first the large panels themselves; then the large studies that he painted directly beside the pond and that often included plants and flowers growing on the banks . . . The pondside studies are mostly rather large--far larger than convenient plein air canvases that would allow the painter to see subject and painting on a comparable scale . . . Many of these pondside studies are canvas, sometimes floating clear in the water, sometimes framed by the dark reflections of trees. Others focus on the growth of the bank, fringes of irises outlined against the water and reflected sky" (R. Gordon and A. Forge, Monet, New York, 1983, p. 266).
Iris typifies Monet's work from this period in which the Impressionist technique, so familiar in Monet's early work, has given way to a more abstract, flattened canvas. The artist's palette is bolder and more simplified, and the larger-than-life irises are dotted within a landscape of brilliant hues.
As Robert Gordon and Andrew Forge have noted, "The work of this period--from 1914 to his death--can be divided into several groups: first the large panels themselves; then the large studies that he painted directly beside the pond and that often included plants and flowers growing on the banks . . . The pondside studies are mostly rather large--far larger than convenient plein air canvases that would allow the painter to see subject and painting on a comparable scale . . . Many of these pondside studies are canvas, sometimes floating clear in the water, sometimes framed by the dark reflections of trees. Others focus on the growth of the bank, fringes of irises outlined against the water and reflected sky" (R. Gordon and A. Forge, Monet, New York, 1983, p. 266).
Iris typifies Monet's work from this period in which the Impressionist technique, so familiar in Monet's early work, has given way to a more abstract, flattened canvas. The artist's palette is bolder and more simplified, and the larger-than-life irises are dotted within a landscape of brilliant hues.