Monet, Claude (1840-1926)
Antibes vu de la Salis (Antibes Seen from La Salis)
1888
Oil on canvas, 73.3 × 92 cm
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo
Monet chose to paint this view from the vantage point of the Garden of La Salis looking across the water to Antibes. He positioned himself at the bottom of the garden, close to the water. A large, twisting olive tree dominates the composition, and Antibes sparkles in the distance. His efforts to express the light and color of the Mediterranean fulfilled a promise to his companion, Alice Hoschedé, that what he would paint in Antibes would be “sweetness itself, white, pink, blue, all of it enveloped in this fairy-tale-like air.” (TMA)