Water Lilies

The surface of a pond fills the entire canvas, scattered with floating lily pads and soft reflections rendered in blue, green, purple, and white. There is no horizon line or shore to anchor the view, so the water seems to extend endlessly in every direction. Light and color blend together across the picture, giving the sense of a surface that shifts and dissolves rather than holding still. This piece was painted in 1915, in oil, and is held at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Claude Monet (1840–1926) was a French painter associated with Impressionism, a movement built on loose brushwork and attention to shifting light. One detail worth noticing is how the purple tones seem to sink beneath the surface while the white patches appear to float just above it, deepening the sense of depth in the water.