Landscape at Giverny
Claude Monet (1840 to 1926) · 1887
A meadow in the valley of the Epte, a line of poplars, and the low hills beyond, all painted in the soft green and lilac light of a summer day near Monet's home at Giverny. Monet had moved to the village in 1883 and would stay for the rest of his life, and in the years before he built the famous water garden he painted the fields, the river and the poplars around it. This canvas from 1887 is one of those quiet landscapes, without a figure in sight, made for the pleasure of looking at light on grass and leaves. It belongs to the museum's group of Impressionist paintings, which is the largest in Mexico.
Look at the surface. The brushstrokes are small, layered and directional, following the growth of the grass in the foreground and the sway of the poplars in the middle distance. The colours are high keyed, with pinks and mauves in the shadows instead of browns and greys, and the sky is a pale blend of blue and cream. Monet was interested at this time in the way the same motif changed under different conditions, and this picture is a study of a single moment, probably late morning, with the sun high and the shadows short. Stand back and the meadow snaps into focus; come close and it dissolves into a weave of colour.
The painting was acquired by the Soumaya collection as part of Carlos Slim's effort to bring French painting of the nineteenth century to Mexico, and it hangs on the floor devoted to the road from Romanticism to the avant garde, with Renoir, Degas, Pissarro and Van Gogh nearby. It matters because it lets Mexican visitors see a real Monet without travelling abroad, and because it shows the artist in the years when the Giverny landscape became his whole world. The memorable detail is the row of poplars, which Monet would return to a few years later for one of his great series.
Did You Know? Monet rented the house at Giverny in 1883 and painted the surrounding meadows for years before creating his water lily garden.
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