Morning on the Seine, near Giverny

Monet worked on his Morning on the Seine series from 1896 to 1897, rising before dawn to capture the river near Giverny in the still moments when mist blurred the boundary between water and reflected trees. This version at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston belongs to a group of approximately eighteen canvases focused on the same motif under varying light conditions — a systematic investigation of atmospheric perception that anticipates the methods he would apply to the water lilies series after 1896. The series was shown at Durand-Ruel's gallery in 1898 to considerable critical acclaim.

The palette is extraordinarily restricted — deep greens and grey-mauves with barely any warm colour — creating the peculiar visual silence of dawn on still water. Paint application is light and transparent in the reflections, with longer vertical strokes tracking the mirror image of overhanging trees into the water surface below.