For the Love of Water-Lilies: Monet’s Final Masterworks
Once reviled, now revered, Claude Monet’s series of paintings reflect on the tragedy of war, express a hope for peace, and celebrate the joy of creation
Claude Monet’s series of grand paintings known collectively as Water-Lilies were described as “the Sistine Chapel of Impressionism,” by fellow artist André Masson in 1952. Among the most important and well-loved works of the French Impressionists, they have inspired many artists, notably American abstract painters Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko who were impressed by their monumental scale and the joy of creation expressed in the loose and lively brushstrokes. They responded by using large canvases that set free their own approaches to applying paint in expressive and expansive ‘colourfields’.
Housed in rooms specially designed for them at the Orangerie in Paris, the culmination of Monet’s many paintings of Water-Lilies are now among the most popular artworks in the world. But it was not always so, and would not have been achieved without the support of Monet’s stepdaughter Blanche, who kept house for him and encouraged him during this final work, along with his lifelong friend, Georges Clémenceau.
