Profile of Works
Water Lilies
- 1908
- Oil on canvas
- 101.0 x 90.0 cm
The images of the TFAM’s collection on our website are available for free.
High-resolution image is available from PHOTO AGENCY.
In the 1890s, Monet enthusiastically created some series of the paintings including Haystacks, Poplars, Rouen Cathedral and Morning on the Seine. It was in 1897 that Monet began to paint the water lilies in the pond of the Japanese garden at his home in Giverny. He created eight paintings in the first series of Water Lilies, and in 1902 started to work in earnest on the execution of the Water Lilies series. Monet eventually created more than 300 paintings that depicted his garden and pond in Giverny, until 1926 when he died of pneumosclerosis in his bedroom from which he could have overlooked the flower garden. Especially, most of these paintings were painted from when Monet was past the age of 70, until he was aged 86.
This painting is one of the 15 works in the Water Lilies series that Monet painted in 1908 at the age of 68, and together with 47 works from his other series, it was exhibited in a solo exhibition titled “Water Lilies. Water Landscape” at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris in May of the following year (1909). In this painting, Monet minimized the difference of light and shade as much as possible, presenting delicate, exquisite colors and decorations like a rococo style, the method with which Monet had experimented occasionally from around 1906. Among an enormous number of the paintings in the series Water Lilies, this painting exhibits the lightest style.
Monet remarked about one of the reasons he was so fascinated by water lilies: his image of the water garden “evokes in you the idea of the infinite; you experience there, as in microcosm… the instability of the universe which transforms itself at every moment before our eyes.” As often indicated, the method of extracting a portion of the water surface and painting the close-up view of the portion can be considered a suggestive method of “using a part to represent the whole” as seen in the Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints. It is no doubt that Monet learned a “perspective” and “representation” from ukiyo-e prints. This can be guessed from a collection of more than 200 ukiyo-e prints Monet had acquired which are hung on the walls of his house which is now the Claude Monet Museum.
Such a new development of his style into which Monet introduced an oriental aesthesis was variously criticized, but Monet refuted: “Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.” Another work created in the same year with almost the same composition and same color tones as this work is housed in the National Museum of Wales.
The images of the TFAM’s collection on our website are available for free.
High-resolution image is available from PHOTO AGENCY.
ARTIST
Claude Monet
(1840-1926)
Currently exhibiting
Sep 16, 2023 (Sat)
～Dec 10, 2023 (Sun)
Name of Exhibition :
Permanent Exhibition: From the Renaissance to the 20th Century—500 Years of Western Paintings
Place of Exhibition :
Permanent Exhibition Gallery 3
Exhibit history
- Jul 28, 2023 (Fri)～Aug 27, 2023 (Sun)
Masterpieces of Modern Eastern and Western Painting Exhibition Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art (Ishikawa, Japan) - Sep 17, 2022 (Sat)～Nov 20, 2022 (Sun)
400 Years of Western Paintings - Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum - Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design (Toyama, Japan) - Jul 16, 2022 (Sat)～Sep 4, 2022 (Sun)
Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art (Kumamoto, Japan) - Mar 19, 2022 (Sat)～May 8, 2022 (Sun)
Masterpieces of European Paintings From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection Saga Prefectural Art Museum (Saga, Japan) - Oct 23, 2021 (Sat)～Dec 26, 2021 (Sun)
The 400 Years of Western Painting: Masterpieces From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts (Tochigi, Japan) - Oct 15, 2021 (Fri)～Jan 16, 2022 (Sun)
Claude Monet, Nymphéas : Paysage d’eau Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo (Tokyo, Japan) - Jul 9, 2021 (Fri)～Aug 29, 2021 (Sun)
400 Years of European Paintings: Masterpieces From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art (Okayama, Japan) - Dec 15, 2020 (Tue)～Jan 31, 2021 (Sun)
How to Read Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum (Okinawa, Japan) - Sep 12, 2020 (Sat)～Nov 3, 2020 (Tue)
400 Years of Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Miyazaki Prefectural Art Museum (Miyazaki, Japan) - Jul 22, 2020 (Wed)～Sep 6, 2020 (Sun)
400 Years of Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Oita Prefectural Art Museum (Oita, Japan) - Feb 20, 2020 (Thu)～Apr 12, 2020 (Sun)
How to Read Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum The Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki (Ibaraki, Japan) - Nov 2, 2019 (Sat)～Dec 22, 2019 (Sun)
“Rendez-vous” through Arts―East Meets West― Kuboso Memorial Museum of Arts, Izumi (Osaka, Japan) - Sep 3, 2019 (Tue)～Oct 22, 2019 (Tue)
Masterpieces of European Paintings From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection Yamaguchi Prefectural Art Museum (Yamaguchi, Japan) - Jan 12, 2019 (Sat)～May 4, 2019 (Sat)
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Shanghai PowerLong Museum (Shanghai, China) - Oct 23, 2018 (Tue)～Dec 23, 2018 (Sun)
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tsinghua University Art Museum (Beijing, China) - Jul 9, 2016 (Sat)～Aug 28, 2016 (Sun)
300 years of Western Painting from Baroque, Rococo to École de Paris Nagano Prefectural Shinano Art Museum (Nagano, Japan) - Oct 8, 2015 (Thu)～Feb 21, 2016 (Sun)
Japan’s Love for Impressionism - from Monet to Renoir The Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bonn, Germany) - Jul 18, 2014 (Fri)～Aug 31, 2014 (Sun)
Modern Western Paintlings and the Old Matsukata Collection Kagoshima City Museum of Art (Kagoshima, Japan) - Mar 11, 2014 (Tue)～May 11, 2014 (Sun)
Impressionists at the Waterside—Depicting Urban Resorts: Paris, the Seine, and Normandy The Museum of Kyoto (Kyoto, Japan) - Jan 15, 2014 (Wed)～Mar 2, 2014 (Sun)
Impressionists at the Waterside—Depicting Urban Resorts: Paris, the Seine, and Normandy Fukuoka City Museum (Fukuoka, Japan) - May 10, 2013 (Fri)～Sep 8, 2013 (Sun)
Monet’s Garden National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne, Australia) - Jul 9, 2011 (Sat)～Oct 10, 2011 (Mon)
Painting Light Aomori Museum of Art (Aomori, Japan) - Dec 7, 2010 (Tue)～Feb 17, 2011 (Thu)
Monet and the Artists of Giverny The Beginning of American Impressionism The Bunkamura Museum of Art (Tokyo, Japan) - Oct 9, 2010 (Sat)～Nov 28, 2010 (Sun)
Monet and the Artists of Giverny The Beginning of American Impressionism Kitakyusyu Municipal Museum of Art (Fukuoka, Japan) - Feb 23, 2010 (Tue)～May 30, 2010 (Sun)
Monet and Abstraction Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, Spain) - Apr 4, 2009 (Sat)～May 24, 2009 (Sun)
The Intersection of Paintings and Photographs Sapporo Art Museum (Hokkaido, Japan) - Jan 30, 2009 (Fri)～Mar 25, 2009 (Wed)
The Intersection of Paintings and Photographs Hokkaido Obihiro Museum of Art (Hokkaido, Japan) - Jul 14, 2007 (Sat)～Nov 25, 2007 (Sun)
Impressionists and Its Sources: Monet, Renoir, and Barbizon Masters Musee d'art Mercian KARUIZAWA (Nagano, Japan) - Apr 7, 2007 (Sat)～Jul 2, 2007 (Mon)
Claude Monet:L'art de Monet et sa postérité The National Art Center, Tokyo (Tokyo, Japan) - Apr 18, 2003 (Fri)～May 25, 2003 (Sun)
The Great Masters of Art Fukuoka Art Museum (Fukuoka, Japan) - Oct 5, 2002 (Sat)～Nov 4, 2002 (Mon)
Art of the West & Art of Japan Exhibition: Monet, Renoir, Cezanne... Ikeno Taiga, Tani Buncho, and Others Shimane Art Museum (Shimane, Japan) - Sep 7, 2002 (Sat)～Sep 29, 2002 (Sun)
Four Centuries of Occidental Paintings from the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection SOGO Museum of Art (Kanagawa, Japan) - Jul 20, 2002 (Sat)～Sep 1, 2002 (Sun)
The Great Masters of Art Hida Takayama Museum of Art (Gifu, Japan) - Jun 29, 2001 (Fri)～Sep 16, 2001 (Sun)
Monet & Japan Art Gallery of Western Australia (Perth, Australia) - Mar 9, 2001 (Fri)～Jun 11, 2001 (Mon)
Monet & Japan National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, Australia) - Oct 1, 2000 (Sun)～Dec 3, 2000 (Sun)
Masterpieces of Western Paintings from the Renaissance to the 20th Century National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (Taipei, Taiwan) - Jan 18, 1999 (Mon)～Apr 11, 1999 (Sun)
Monet in the 20th Century Royal Academy of Arts (London, UK) - Sep 23, 1998 (Wed)～Jan 3, 1999 (Sun)
Monet in the 20th Century Museum of Fine Arts Boston (Boston, USA) - Oct 14, 1997 (Tue)～Nov 30, 1997 (Sun)
Masterpieces of Western Oil Painting from the TFAM Collection Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong, China) - Jul 31, 1997 (Thu)～Aug 12, 1997 (Tue)
Claude Monet Daimaru Museum (Tokyo, Japan) - Jul 22, 1995 (Sat)～Nov 26, 1995 (Sun)
Claude Monet: 1840-1926 The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, USA) - Apr 16, 1994 (Sat)～Jun 12, 1994 (Sun)
Monet retrospective exhibition Nagoya City Art Museum (Aichi, Japan) - Feb 11, 1994 (Fri)～Apr 7, 1994 (Thu)
Monet retrospective exhibition Bridgestone Museum of Art (Tokyo, Japan) - Oct 16, 1992 (Fri)～Nov 5, 1992 (Thu)
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting: The Paintings in 20th Century from the Renaissance to Impressionism China Art Gallery (Beijing, China) - Nov 3, 1990 (Sat)～Dec 2, 1990 (Sun)
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting Ho-Am Art Museum (Yongin-gun, Kyunggi-do, South Korea) - Sep 22, 1990 (Sat)～Oct 21, 1990 (Sun)
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting Ho-Am Gallery (Seoul, South Korea)
Origin of collections
- Provenance:
acheté à Monet par Durand-Ruel et Bernheim-Jeune en mars 1913 et vendu à Bernheim –Jene en 1920
Mrs.Potter Palme , Chicago
Honoré Palmer, Chicago
Légué á l’Art Institute de Chicago en 1949
Mr and Mrs Edmund W. Mudge Jr. Dallas, c.1949
vente Edmund W. Mudge, New York, Parke Bernet,28 octobre 1970, n゜.23 (Forbes)
vente, Londres , Christie, 2 juillet 1974 ,n゜65 (Yamamoto) P.A, Japon, 1981
Exhibited :
Paris, Durand-Ruel, Monet, Nymphéas, 1909, no.41
Paris, Bernheim-Jeune, Paysages impressionistes, 1920, no.21 ou 22
Tokyo, Galerie des Arts, Monet, Renoir, Bonnard, 1979, no.16
Tokyo, Seibu Museum of Art, Monet, 1981, n.20
Reference
Letters n.1885, 1887, 1888, 2058 et 2059
L. Venturi, Archives…, 1939, t.I, pp.421-422, 437
D. Rouart, J.D. Rey et R. Maillard, 1972, p.165 (ill.).
D. Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisoné, Lausanne-Paris, 1979, vol.IV, p.230, n.1731 (illustrated)
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