Claude Monet

This view of the Seine where it joins the river Epte was likely begun from a boat or on a nearby shore. One of a series Monet painted of this site, it suggests a reverie in which forms have been abstracted and recalled.

Monet frames the confluence of the river and the luminous sky with densely massed foliage. Rose-blue light infuses the landscape, emanating from above and repeated in a watery reflection. Subtly distinguishing the trees from their mirror images, the artist loosened and reoriented his brushstrokes to record their presence in the flowing river. Similarly, he transformed the diagonal movement of the clouds into scattered marks in the waves below.