Irises by the Pond

Clusters of violet blooms rise above streaks of yellow-green foliage, their forms echoed in the blue surface of a pond below, all rendered through loose, visible brushwork. The canvas, painted in 1914, is an oil work held at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where it entered the collection through the Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund. It was made by Claude Monet (1840–1926), a French painter associated with Impressionism. Looking closely, the reflections in the water seem to dissolve the line between the flowers above and their mirrored image below, so that the pond itself appears woven from the same loose strokes of color as the irises and leaves it reflects.