Branch of the Seine near Giverny (Mist), from the series "Mornings on the Seine"

The 'Mornings on the Seine' series, painted from a flat-bottomed boat at dawn during 1896 and 1897, represents Monet's most meditative engagement with still water and atmospheric dissolution. This mist-laden view near Giverny — from the Art Institute of Chicago — captures the moment before full sunrise when river and bank merge in silvery vapour. The series of around eighteen canvases records the same stretch of river under varying dawn conditions, prefiguring the abstract dissolution of form that would characterize his final Water Lilies murals. They were exhibited at Petit's gallery in 1898 and admired by symbolist critics who saw in them a metaphor for consciousness emerging from dreams.

Monet builds the misty surface through layered glazes of pearlescent grey, pale mauve, and green. Brushwork is exceptionally delicate — soft horizontal strokes blend into one another, erasing the boundary between river and bank. The reflections of trees create vertical accents that anchor the otherwise dissolved scene.