Water Lilies

"Suddenly I had the revelation of how magical my pond is. I took up my palette. Since that time I have scarcely had any other model."
- Claude Monet

The last 30 years of Monet's life were dominated by his water lilies of which he painted about 250 oil paintings. Claude Monet loved to garden and observe nature and he enjoyed doing his paintings en plein air. It inspired him to do his painting outside where he could observe his subject matter as he painted because Monet simply painted what he saw. He tried to capture what people see of natural light and color and their variability. However, to do this he needed to disregard what others said art needed to look like and create a style all his own, ignoring the principles of art defined by his predecessors.

The earlier, smaller Water Lilies are characterized by attention paid to the pretty aspects of the painting, like the flowers, later downplayed by Monet. In the Water Lilies, non-reflected light sometimes shown to a degree along with its reflection. Also, in the smaller Water Lilies, Monet would do what he had frequently done before, paint a scene that is recognizably the same, but under different circumstances such as different lighting. This can be seen when comparing the various Water Lilies of 1907.

In 1914 Monet began a huge undertaking that he had considered for quite some time. This was his Grandes Décorations. These giant scale oil paintings displayed his lily pond life-sized. He donated them to the state in celebration of the Allied victory. The end result was on 22 canvases which have two oval rooms built just for them in the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris.