Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn)

Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn) depicts the stacks in the transitional light of late afternoon in autumn, the season Monet depicted most frequently in this series, when the low October sun creates long shadows and warm amber light on the harvest stacks. Autumn was the natural season for harvest storage subjects, but Monet's interest was in the specific quality of autumn light — lower in the sky, warmer in colour temperature, creating longer shadows than summer — rather than in the agricultural subject itself. This canvas belongs to the core of the 1891 Durand-Ruel exhibition.

The low afternoon sun models the stacks with a strong warm-cool contrast: lit faces in orange and copper, shadow sides in mauve and blue. Long shadows on the ground create a directional structure across the lower portion of the canvas. The sky is relatively simply handled, deferring to the interaction of light and form below.