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Monet began his series of Water Lily series in the late 1890’s. His first major group of garden pictures followed the method of the series, taking a single subject and studying it intensively. Between 1904 and 1908 he created over 150 paintings of the lily pond in the Japanese garden. Each year he began a new group with a different viewpoint. He said that he wished these ‘water landscapes’ to be ‘works of no weather and no season’. (Tucker, 177)

Carla Rachman, one of the critics of Monet’s Water Lily series, takes an artistic point of view on these works. Her belief is that Monet was trying to portray different artistic skills in the paintings through point of view, depth, and color. (287) “The process of universalization in Monet’s paintings could not go much farther; all that is left in the last generation of Giverny paintings is water, plants, earth and sky.” (Rachman, 287) As the subjects become more abbreviated and the canvases grow in size, the viewer’s attention is diverted from the subject to the surface of the picture. Rachman believes Monet was essentially depicting a surface without depth. (287) “He was looking both at and into the pool, simultaneously aware of the transparent and weedy depths and the deceptively bright reflections bobbing above them.” (Rachman, 287)

“Many of the most challenging pictures in this series appear to depict evening effects.” (Rachman, 289) This is suggested by the fading light in the scenes and the way that Monet muddies his palette. Seductive pinks and greens all of the sudden become moodier mauves and murkier olives, mediation and seriousness replacing charm and delight. (Rachman, 289)

Rachman believes that “water landscapes” is a good name for these paradoxical paintings, which could also be entitled “water skyscapes”, for the land is reduced to a rim or is entirely absent. (289) The horizon has disappeared and if there is sky below the land, inverting the normal relationship, often the water fills the whole in the foreground. Monet’s occasional use of circular canvases, in this series, serves further to distort the perceptions of the spectator. The pictures are oddly disorienting in their refusal to provide the usual firm viewpoint of the Western painting. (Rachman, 289)

However, there are some critics who look deeper into these paintings, past the artistic devices used, in search of a greater meaning. Paul Hayes Tucker is one such critic who finds the subject matter to be Monet’s way of relating nature to human. (190)

“By focusing almost exclusively on his gardens for the last two decades of his life, Monet was not emptying his art of significance, just the opposite. Monet asserts the primacy of an individual vision and everyone’s ability to find meaning in the fundamental relation of the human to the natural. Through his works he insists that once people come to know themselves better, they could recognize their place in the larger whole.” (Tucker, 190)

These ideas are evident in the extended group of paintings that Monet produced of his gardens in the series Water Lilies. (Tucker, 190)

In Tucker’s view what is most important in the Water Lily series, however, is the endless array of relationships that Monet has presented for the viewer to discover. (193) The interaction between the various clusters of water lilies, for example, or between the horizontal distribution and the reflections around them which are predominately vertical. Equally engaging are the reflections of the foliage in relation to the water’s evident depth. Even the undergrowth along the edges of the pond play a role as they rise up to greet the bridge on either side, often twisting to imitate the arched form. It is these kinds of relationships that abound in the picture just as they do in the world. These relationships make the experience meaningful for the viewer: they sharpen one’s senses and clarify one’s own relationship to their physical surroundings. (Tucker, 193) “It is these kinds of relationships, finally, that Monet suggests should be recognized and contemplated, because they have the power to create harmony out of contrast and extract beauty from the mundane.” (Tucker, 194)

Monet’s works during his last years at Giverney are mysteriously beautiful and can be interpreted many ways, holding a different meaning for each individual. I see Monet’s work as objects of wonder and enchantment, which boggle the mind, stimulate thought and provide visual pleasure for the viewer. There is no denying that Monet is probably one of the best-loved artist in the world. People who have never even seen any of his actual paintings recognize his work. Monet’s work commands immense prices and a seemingly endless stream of studies and monographs every year and will continue to do so the centuries to come.

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