The Water Lily Pond

Monet painted The Water Lily Pond in 1899, during his second decade at Giverny. He had bought the property in 1890, diverted a stream to create a pond, and built a Japanese-style bridge across it. By 1899 the garden was mature and he was painting it almost exclusively. A wooden footbridge arches over a pond covered with water lilies. The bridge is green, the water is dark blue and green, and the lilies are pink and white. The banks are thick with willows and bamboo, their reflections dissolving into the water. The canvas is roughly 35 by 37 inches, nearly square. The composition is dense: there is no sky, no horizon, no distance. The surface of the water fills the entire frame. Monet painted at least 18 versions of the water lily pond with the Japanese bridge between 1899 and 1900. This version is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He worked from a small boat on the pond and from the bank, setting up multiple canvases and moving between them as the light changed. By 1899 Monet was 59 and the most famous painter in France. He had stopped exhibiting with the Impressionists in 1882 and had been building his garden at Giverny as a private world to paint. The water lily paintings grew out of this garden, and they would occupy him for the last 27 years of his life, culminating in the large decorative panels now in the Musee de l'Orangerie. Oil on canvas, 89 by 93 centimeters. Monet painted with a restricted palette of greens, blues, and pinks, building the water in layers of short brushstrokes. The lilies are thick dabs of paint, the reflections are long vertical strokes. The bridge is outlined in green with a few strokes of dark blue. This painting works in a living room, bedroom, or office. The greens and blues suit a room with natural light, plants, or water elements. The 18x24 framed version in a white frame is the most versatile size. The nearly square format also works well at 16x20. The painting is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the H. O. Havemeyer Collection. This is a public domain artwork, sourced from Wikimedia Commons. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 24x36 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.