claude monet
Claude Monet made the first sketches for this painting from just below his
French, 1840–1926
own garden at Vétheuil, looking across the Seine to the town of Lavacourt
The Seine at Lavacourt
on the opposite bank. Monet was struggling financially, and, as he wrote,
1880
he was seeking to “do something wiser, more bourgeois.” In a deliberate
Oil on canvas
attempt to reach a larger public and market, he submitted the traditionally
38P × 58P in. (98.4 × 149.2 cm) Munger Fund, 1938.4.M
formulated Seine at Lavacourt to the 1880 Salon. It was accepted, but the canvas was poorly hung and never attracted much attention except from writer Émile Zola, the vocal advocate of impressionism, who described it as “an exquisite note of light and open air.” In the same year, Monet submitted another, more audacious scene, which was refused. He would never again offer a painting to the Salon.
european and american
3121-03 DMA handbook European-American [RCP 10-11].indd 199
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