Artist: Claude Monet
Year: 1899
Medium: Oil on canvas
Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge represents two of Monet’s greatest achievements: his gardens at Giverny and the paintings they inspired. Monet moved to Giverny in 1883 and immediately began to develop the property. For him, the gardens were both a passion and a second artistic medium. His Asian garden was not part of the original estate; it was located on an adjacent property with a small brook, which he purchased and enlarged into a pond for a water garden in 1893. He transformed the site into an inspired vision of cool greens and calm, reflective waters, enhanced by exotic plants such as bamboo, ginkgo, and Japanese fruit trees and a Japanese footbridge. It was not until 1899, however, that he began a series of views of the site, of which this is one. A careful craftsman who reworked his canvases multiple times, Monet was committed to painting directly from nature as much as possible and for as long as he had the correct conditions; thus, he could work on as many as eight or more canvases a day, devoting as little as an hour or less to each. In this case, he set up his easel at the edge of the water-lily pond and worked on several paintings of the subject as part of a single process. Monet’s gardens and paintings show the same fascination with the effects of time and weather on the landscape. Both are brilliant expressions of his unique visual sensitivity and emotional response to nature. At Giverny, he literally shaped nature for his brush, cultivating vistas to paint.
Monet painted several versions of the Japanese Bridge at Giverny.
He did not always give each canvas a strict, unique title. Later catalogues and museums often assigned descriptive names based on what is shown in the painting.
Among them are "The Japanese Bridge," "Japanese Bridge at Giverny," and "Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge."
So the paintings are not always known by one single fixed title.
Where can I see more that are actual Monet paintings (online). I'm not sure I know enough to qualify as a dillitante, but I'm extremely fond of impressionism style.
For example, Wikipedia has a whole list of Monet’s works that includes several versions of this painting, among many others (the version featured in this post is currently at the Princeton University Art Museum).
Many museums also provide high res images, such as the Musée Marmottan Monet
Thank you!
Ones in public ownership in Britain are normally listed and photographed on Art UK.
artuk.org - Claude Monet
Thank you!