MUSEE ORSAY, Monet Poppy Field_Room 29

The painting you are looking at is considered one of the undisputed symbols of Impressionism. A group of painters, in fact, organized an exhibition in Paris in 1873, during which Monet exhibited Poppy Field for the first time alongside another of his works, Impression, Sunrise, a title from which artists took their cue to name their movement.

Claude Monet's Poppy Field encapsulates all the innovations introduced by the Impressionists: it is painted outdoors, to capture all the vibrancy of nature's colors through natural light, it has no preparatory drawing behind it, but was made directly with rapid brushstrokes to capture a snapshot of the landscape before the light changed. If you look closely at the canvas, you will notice that the perspective is not achieved through a precise geometric grid, as in classical painting, but is rendered by the diagonal of the red poppies descending from left to right with patches of color that become larger and larger.

Look at the field of flowers, the two pairs of women with their children walking, the blue sky. Doesn't everything convey serenity?

Well, you should know that the painting was made by Monet during a very positive period of his life.

Indeed, in 1871, at the end of the Franco-Prussian war, which lasted almost a year, and due to which he had fled to England to avoid having to enlist, Monet had returned home and moved with his wife and son to the countryside, only 30 kilometers from Paris.

His works were already appreciated and the art dealer Durand Ruel guaranteed him a fairly stable income. All this had stimulated his creativity, allowing him to create some of his most beautiful works.

Here’s an interesting fact: The woman with the parasol and the child by her side are most probably Monet's wife, Camille, and their son, Jean. Sadly, a few years after the painting was completed, the young woman died of cancer at the age of only 32, shortly after the birth of their second son Michel.