MONET, Claude
(b. 1840, Paris, d. 1926, Giverny)

Garden at Sainte-Adresse

1867
Oil on canvas, 98 x 130 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Monet landscape experiments in the mid-1860s resulted in some particularly striking works, such as the Garden at Sainte-Adresse which he painted in 1867 near Le Havre. In this work he abandoned the contrasts and somber tones of his early years in favour of a juxtaposition of bright fresh colours (greens, reds, blues) in a tiered composition with an unusually high horizon such as he might have found in Japanese prints.

The picture is rendered in dazzling colour. Monet's father and aunt are seated in the foreground facing the sea. His cousin is seen standing with a man, possibly her father, in the middle ground. The direction of the sun tells us that it is mid-morning; the gladiolas tell us that it is mid-summer. The raised vantage point of the picture - Monet was painting in a window on the second floor - divides the composition into three horizontal registers that seem to rise parallel to the surface of the canvas rather than recede into space.




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