MASP

Claude Monet

Japanese Bridge over the Water – Lily Pond in Giverny, 1920-24

  • Author:
    Claude Monet
  • Bio:
    Paris, França, 1840-Giverny, França ,1926
  • Title:
    Japanese Bridge over the Water – Lily Pond in Giverny
  • Date:
    1920-24
  • Medium:
    Óleo sobre tela
  • Dimensions:
    90 x 92,5 cm
  • Credit line:
    Doação Louis La Saigne, 1948
  • Object type:
    Pintura
  • Inventory number:
    MASP.00093
  • Photography credits:
    João Musa

TEXTS



Monet was introduced to the painting of seascapes in the open air by Eugène Boudin (1824-1898). In the following years, he approached a group of young artists, enthusiastic about the painting of the Barbizon School as well as the work of Manet (1832-1883) and Courbet (1819-1877). His landscapes from the 1860s evince how Monet had begun to experiment with the representation of reflections of light on water, which led him to formulate a new relation between painting and nature, from which impressionism derived. In fact, the name of the impressionist group came from the title of a painting by Monet, Impression, Sunrise, presented at the group’s first show, in 1874. The two works in MASP’s collection were painted in Giverny, to where Monet moved in 1883. Japanese Bridge over the Water-Lily Pond in Giverny, (1920-24) is a painting from the last years of the painter’s life. In the works of this phase, the shapes of the objects are broken apart, as the definition of the image takes second place to the effects of the patches of color on the surface of the canvas. Seen from up close, the layer of paint is thinner and more spread out than usual. At the time, a certain critic attributed this effect to the malady that was afflicting the old artist’s vision, not considering the meaning behind his gradual shift away from the verisimilitude of figuration.

— MASP Curatorial Team





The “Japanese Bridge” theme is one of a series of paintings which Monet spent most time on between the years 1918 and 1924, of which 23 canvases have been preserved. Soon after his cataract operation in 1923, the painter exhibited this production to marchand Joseph Durand-Ruel who noted that “the new studio is literally filled with the latest series from Mont… It is evident that he can no longer see anything and cannot distinguish colors.” Such incomprehension of Durand-Ruel, one of the most audacious and far-seeing marchands, well depicts the misgivings of many who were not yet ready for the latest developments in Monet’s art. The proximity to abstractionism in these final series should be understood not just as a tendency to abolish the figure but also as an almost total abolition of emotional content. The painting of the Masp Collection, Japanese Bridge over the Water – Lily Pound in Giverny, is entirely constructed in greenish blue tones leaning toward the limit of monochrome. The work integrates a set of canvases with a similar treatment of color and composition, also characterized by a search for depth in the more luminous tones.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

Source: Luiz Marques (org.), Catalogue of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, São Paulo: MASP, 1998. (new edition, 2008).



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