Claude Monet
The River, 1881
On view
39 further works by Monet
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Oil on canvas, 54 x 73 cm
Signed lower right: Claude Monet
Inv.-no. MB-Mon-11
Claude Monet depicted an evening on the river using a reduced formal vocabulary. The impulsive play of lines seems to be rapidly set down, as if the painter had wanted to complete the composition just before the sun disappeared. Several branches glow in the red light of its last rays. Although the picture has the appearance of a sketch, the artist’s signature indicates that he considered it an independent, completed work.
According to Academic standards, a finished painting was characterized by a polished surface in which even subordinate elements should be developed in some detail. Monet resisted this aesthetic of the fini by dissolving the traditional distinction between the preparatory sketch (esquisse or étude) and the painting intended for exhibition (tableau). His dynamic brushwork and sketch-like approach to the painted surface gave his works a sense of immediacy and freshness normally reserved for the rapidly executed study or sketch.
The River of 1881 is a classic example of the Impressionist dissolution of the painted surface into a pulsating web of visible brushstrokes in pure colors. The red rowboat in the lower left sets a strong visual accent, though it is difficult to identify at first glance. Many of Monet’s critics would not have considered this radically abstracted river landscape worthy of exhibition. But Monet was concerned to reveal the material process by which his paintings were made and to emphasize both the act of painting and his personal handwriting as an artist. The signature in the lower right corner indicates that Monet himself viewed the painting as an independent, finished work, though it was never exhibited during his lifetime.
In the four-volume catalogue raisonné of Monet’s paintings compiled by Daniel Wildenstein, The River is listed as no. 703 (vol. 2, p. 263).
Daniel Zamani
Impressionism: The Art of Landscape, Museum Barberini, Potsdam, January 21–May 28, 2017
Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature, Denver Art Museum, October 20, 2019–February 2, 2020
Monet: Orte, Museum Barberini, Potsdam, February 22–July 19, 2020, no. 57
Impressionism: The Hasso Plattner Collection, Museum Barberini, Potsdam, from September 5, 2020
n.d., Michel Monet, Giverny
n.d., André Barbier, Paris
March 17, 1981, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, lot 56
November 25, 1982, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, lot 85
n.d., Aska International, Tokyo
n.d., Private collection, Japan
March 2014, Art trade
Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 1, Lausanne 1974, no. 703, S. 416, ill. p. 417
Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue Raisonné. Werkverzeichnis, vol. 2, Cologne 1996, no. 703, p. 263
Impressionism: The Art of Landscape, exh. cat. Museum Barberini, Potsdam 2017, no. 39, p. 132, ill. p. 145
Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature, exh. cat. Denver Art Museum, Denver 2019, no. 57, ill. p. 166
Monet: Orte, exh. cat. Museum Barberini, Potsdam 2020, no. 57, ill. p. 166
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