Claude Monet

In his early depictions of water lilies from 1903–04, Monet had suggested spatial depth by integrating the water’s edge or the surrounding vegetation into the image. Yet even in these compositions, the reflective surface of the water emancipated itself as the dominant pictorial motif, where the ever-changing reflections of plants and sky could be juxtaposed with the firm contours of the water lilies. In later variations such as this large-scale piece—which includes no motif other than the pond itself—Monet’s attention is focused more on the mysterious configurations of color within the reflections. The water functions as a pure field for projection and thus metaphorically as a duplication of the actual canvas. The process of fragmentation, as well as the striking view from nearby and above, undermines the conventional rules of landscape painting: above and below, foreground, middle ground, and background no longer provide the viewer with reliable points of orientation. Instead, an all-over effect is created in which the pond appears as a unified, spatially unbounded field, allowing the free handling of color and form as autonomous visual elements.

Already in his Grainstacks of 1890–91, Monet had used a serial approach to explore fleeting changes of atmosphere and to document the differing appearances of objects under differing conditions of color, shade, and light. The reflective qualities of the pond allowed him to pursue this process even more consistently and bring his painting to the threshold of pure abstraction.

When Monet began to exhibit his Nymphéas in 1909, many of his contemporaries were impressed by the poetic effect of his late garden pictures with their dreamlike atmosphere of introspection and retreat from the world. The critic Roger Marx, for example, interpreted the water lily pictures as the epitome of “emotion, joy, and humanism” through which Monet was seeking to express the human longing for oneness with nature. Regardless of whether his images of water lilies were actually inspired by pantheistic impulses of this kind, Monet’s paintings of the water garden evoke themes that transcend the domestic motif: the vitality of water as a life-giving, cosmic, primeval force, as well as the time-honored function of the garden as a symbol of Paradise. As the artist told Marx, “I have no other wish than to mingle more closely with nature . . . . Nature is greatness, power and immortality; compared with her, a creature is nothing but a miserable atom.”

In the four-volume catalogue raisonné of Monet’s paintings compiled by Daniel Wildenstein, the painting in the Hasso Plattner Collection is listed as no. 1884 (vol. 4, p. 895). Other works from this series, consisting of horizontal compositions in tones of yellow and green painted around 1918, are now found in collections including the Museum Folkwang in Essen (and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Daniel Zamani

Monet, Kunsthaus Zürich, May 10–June 15, 1952, no. 107

Chicago Collectors, Art Institute, Chicago, September 20–October 27, 1963

One Hundred European Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Leigh B. Block, National Gallery of Art, Washington, May 4–June 11, 1967; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, September 21–November 2, 1967; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, February 2–April 11, 1968

Monet, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, October 9–November 28, 1982; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, December 8, 1982–January 30, 1983, no. 58

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. 127

Impressionism: The Hasso Plattner Collection, Museum Barberini, Potsdam, from September 5, 2020

n.d., Michel Monet, Giverny
n.d., Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris
n.d., Galerie Maeght, Paris
1957, Mr. and Mrs. Leigh Block Collection, Chicago
1978, Acquavella Galleries, New York
1978–2014, MOA Museum of Art, Atami, permanent loan by Mochiki Okada
March 2014, purchased from a private collection

100 European Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Leigh B. Block, exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington 1967

Monet, exh. cat. Tokyo 1982

Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 4, Lausanne 1985, no. 1884, ill. p. 287

Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue Raisonné. Werkverzeichnis, vol. 4, Cologne 1996, no. 1884, ill. p. 894

Impressionism: The Art of Landscape, exh. cat. Museum Barberini, Potsdam 2017, no. 67, ill. p. 193, 194/95

Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature, exh. cat. Denver Art Museum, Denver 2019, no. 127, p. 71, ill. p. 252

Monet: Orte, exh. cat. Museum Barberini, Potsdam 2020, no. 127, ill. p. 252