Venice, Palazzo Dario

Venice, Palazzo Dario from 1908 at the Art Institute of Chicago belongs to Monet's famous visit to Venice in September–November 1908 with his wife Alice, who had never traveled to Italy. At sixty-eight, his eyesight already beginning to be compromised by the cataracts diagnosed in 1912, Monet responded to Venice with a sustained artistic ambition: nearly forty canvases of the Doge's Palace, San Giorgio Maggiore, the Grand Canal, and the Palazzo Dario. The Palazzo Dario — a fifteenth-century Gothic palace on the Grand Canal famous for its polychrome marble facade — offered him the specific combination of water reflection, architecture, and atmospheric light he sought in Venice. Critics immediately drew comparisons with Turner's Venetian watercolors and the Venetian oils of both Monet and Turner were exhibited together in a landmark 1964 exhibition in New York that confirmed their connection. Alice's declining health during and after the Venice trip overshadowed the visit; she died in May 1911, and Monet's grief was so profound that he could not work for nearly two years afterward.

Monet's brushwork is characteristically loose and broken, built from comma-like strokes that dissolve solid forms into shimmering surfaces of pure color. He worked rapidly outdoors to capture transient atmospheric effects, layering complementary hues without blending to create optical vibration.