Claude Monet - Morning on the Seine, Mist 1897

Morning on the Seine, Mist 1897
Morning on the Seine, Mist
1897 81x93cm oil/canvas
Mead Art Museum, Amherst College

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From Mead Art Museum, Amherst College:
Claude Monet painted landscapes with special attention to light’s ephemeral quality—a principle characteristic of the French Impressionistic movement that he helped found and lead. Beginning in 1896, Monet began to study the River Seine near his Giverny home, awakening each morning at 3:30 to reach the site by dawn. Here, Monet captured the delicate interaction of fog and light as the sun rose over the river. The background landscape seems to melt into the water’s reflection and blend with the horizon, suggesting an almost mystical atmosphere. As the artist described his aims, “It’s the enchantment of it this magical landscape that I’m so keen to render.”
Morning on the Seine belongs to a series of eighteen canvases in which the artist explored the soft tonal harmonies that would later inform his celebrated decorative cycle of paintings of water lilies.
Written by Taylor Friedlander, Class of 2009