Giverny as a Laboratory: Monet's Water Lilies

Water lilies were arguably the single most important subject in Monet's entire career as a painter — he returned to the theme so often that he produced a vast number of paintings around it. The Musée d'Orsay typically displays two Water Lilies canvases.

The setting is the pond at Monet's house in Giverny, just outside Paris. As his paintings grew more popular through the 1880s, their prices climbed with them, and the money freed Monet from the poverty of his earlier years. He bought the house he'd been living in at Giverny outright, planted a wide variety of plants in the garden, and began painting what he saw there. For Monet, that garden functioned almost like a laboratory.

He captured every seasonal shift in that setting — the water lilies blooming on the pond, the willows, even the way light fell and reflected on the water. The painting here shows that same pond and the bridge that spans it. One curious detail: the pond and bridge aren't designed in a French style at all, but a Japanese one. Japanese aesthetics were hugely fashionable in Paris at the time, and although Monet never once traveled to Japan, he was thoroughly captivated by the style. He painted several works in a Japanese mode and decorated everything from his household objects to the pond itself in that style. Giverny is still open to visitors today, and the house looks exactly as it does in his paintings.

This canvas is wonderful in its own right, but to really experience Monet's Water Lilies, you need to visit the Musée de l'Orangerie — the one place where entire rooms are filled wall-to-wall with his water lily paintings, offering the fullest possible encounter with the series. Think of what's here as a taste, and if time allows, a visit to the Orangerie comes highly recommended.