Water Lilies

Monet began painting the water garden he designed at Giverny in 1896, and this 1898 canvas from the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome belongs to his early water lily series, before his more radical close-up compositions of the 1900s. The pond Monet engineered — diverting the Epte river with special permission — became both his greatest obsession and his final creative world. This early version retains a conventional horizon and viewpoint, showing the full pond surface framed by willows and irises, linking it to the plein-air Impressionist tradition even as it begins the retreat into pure reflective surface that would culminate in the Orangerie murals.

Monet applies pigment in loose, overlapping touches that merge reflection and reality. The horizontal banding of the composition — sky reflected in water, lily pads floating above — creates an almost abstract layering. Green and violet tones dominate, with touches of pink and white for the blooms.