Monet, Claude (1840-1926)
Les prairies à Giverny (Meadows at Giverny)
1888
Oil on canvas, 92.5 x 81.5 cm
Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
Monet first moved to Giverny in 1883, and was to spent the whole of the second of his life in this part of central France. The landscape motifs of this area were to come up time and time again in his works. In the summer of 1888, when this painting was produced, he repeatedly turned to the meadows and plains to the south of Giverny, painting them under different weather conditions, with different lighting effects. In this painting the artist skilfully conveys a fleeting moment in nature, a state of transition, when, just starting to pierce through the rain and the gusting wind which shakes the very crowns of the trees, comes the sun. In the clouds we see touches of pink appearing and the soaked meadows reflect warm patches of sunny light. The small, fragmentary brushstrokes, pressed close one to the other, create a solid yet vibrating paint surface and seem to reflect the very finest nuances of colouring. (SHM)