Monet character voice: It took me some time to understand my water lilies. And then, suddenly, I had a revelation of the magic of my pond. I took my palette. From this moment, I have had almost no other model.
Narrator: Claude Monet moved his family from the Paris suburbs to a house in the northern French countryside, thirty years before he made this painting. The garden he created there became the beloved subject of his work for the rest of his long life. This is one of many paintings of his water garden. It’s inspired by the Japanese prints he loved and collected. He wrote:
Monet character voice: The crucial thing is the mirror of water, whose appearance changes constantly with the reflections of the sky.
Narrator: Monet probably began the painting in the spring of 1914. He was emerging from grief following the deaths of his wife and son, into a new burst of hope and creativity.
Monet character voice: I am working at full speed, and no matter what the weather, I paint.
Narrator: Chief Curator Emily Beeny:
Emily Beeny: What I love about this painting is that the waterlilies and the cloud seem to occupy the same surface.
Narrator: This perspective may partly come from looking down from the little Japanese bridge Monet had built over the pond, but also because he would continue working on canvases in his studio, sometimes for years.
Emily Beeny: If we were to look at an X-ray of this painting, it would look like a snowstorm because of how many times he repainted, revisited.
Narrator: Over the years he worked on the painting, World War I was being fought nearby – sometimes so close that he could hear guns booming.
Emily Beeny: And I think it's so interesting to think about that terrible conflict raging at the very moment when he is painting this picture of tremendous tranquility and literal reflection.
