Claude Monet
1903
Oil on canvas
81.3 x 92.4 cm
Claude Monet never worked on his paintings in a systematic way and did not complete them in one go. Rather, he made starts on many of them, up to several dozen at a time. As he explained, the weather in London was so changing that he could only work on a canvas for five minutes before the light and fog shifted, and he was forced to start anew or pick up an earlier canvas. All the paintings were finished in his studio in Giverny. This distance allowed Monet to exaggerate specific effects or enhance certain colours, adding to the visual power of the individual works and the coherence of the series.