Water Lilies

Claude Monet, 1914-26 · Gallery 515 · Floor 5

See that pale bit in the middle? Those are clouds. Now look at the lily pads next to them. The leaves are sitting on the water. The clouds are reflected in it. You know that. But try looking at both. Follow the cloud for a second and the water gets deep. Then you catch a leaf, and there's the surface again. Same bit of painting. So the term "Impressionism" is named after one of Monet's paintings. Basically, the light changes, the colors change. He made a whole career out of paying attention. And here he's given you nearly forty-two feet to get lost in. Three big panels. Pale blue and lavender opening up in the middle, darker greens and purples gathering at the ends. No horizon. No strip of bank. He's left out the things that would tell you where you are. So you're looking down at a pond, looking up at the sky, without moving your head. Pretty good from a bench, right? Go closer and something else happens. The water disappears into paint. Thick bits. Scrubby bits. One color dragged over another. He built a huge studio to make these. Worked on them in there for years, moving between them, painting things over. Looks like a passing cloud. But, you know, took him a while. Then you sit back down, and there's the pond again. Oh, so the actual pond wasn't quite this peaceful. There were trains going past the garden. You don't get those in here. And the road by the pond left dust all over the lilies. So Monet had a gardener go out in a boat and clean them. Somebody had to literally dust the pond. After he died, these stayed in his studio for decades. Then in the fifties, painters like Pollock are working huge. Paint everywhere. Your eye moving across the whole canvas. And so this museum takes another look at the old man's pond.

▶ Listen on Listen to Frank

Also in Gallery 515