Monet, Claude (1840-1926)
Le Jardin de l’artiste à Argenteuil / Les Dahlias (The Artist’s Garden in Argenteuil, A Corner of the Garden with Dahlias)
1873
Oil on canvas, 61 x 82.5 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington
A bank of flowering bushes, possibly roses, fills most of an enclosed garden in front of a white house in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is created using visible dabs and strokes of scarlet red, pale yellow, rust orange, and shell pink for the roses and kelly, teal, and forest green for the greenery. The cloud of flowers fills most of the left two-thirds of the composition, and dabs of shamrock and moss green and delphinium blue indicate grass and other plants around it. To our right of the roses, a couple walks near a fence in the distance. Painted with only a few strokes and touches of paint, one person wears a white dress and hat, and the other a dark gray suit and hat. A celery-green tree grows up the right edge of the canvas and curves toward the ivory-white, three-story house. The upper story is tucked under a pitched, ash-brown roof, and aquamarine-blue shutters flank the windows. More trees surround the house and line the fence. Brushstrokes in white and nickel gray suggest clouds against the ultramarine-blue sky. The artist signed and dated the painting in black near the lower left corner: “Claude Monet 73.” (NGA)
Compare:
Renoir, Auguste (1841-1919)
Monet peignant dans son jardin à Argenteuil
1873
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford
See also:
• Argenteuil (France)