Régates à Argenteuil

Painted in 1872 shortly after Monet settled at Argenteuil following the upheaval of the Franco-Prussian War, Régates à Argenteuil captures the leisure culture that made the Seine town a destination for Parisian day-trippers. Argenteuil hosted some of France's most prestigious sailing regattas, and the sight of white-sailed boats against blue water became one of Monet's recurrent subjects during these years. The work predates the first Impressionist exhibition by two years, placing it at the moment when the new style was still being formulated through practice rather than theory. The Musée d'Orsay holds this canvas as part of its core Impressionist collection, where it is read alongside contemporaneous work by Renoir and Sisley who also painted at Argenteuil.

Monet uses short horizontal strokes to render the water's surface, allowing white of unpainted or lightly tinted ground to read as light. The reflections of boats and bank are not mirrored exactly but slightly abstracted, suggesting optical vibration rather than describing form with precision.