Monet, painting time

2026 will be the centenary of the death of the painter Claude Monet (1840-1926). To mark this anniversary, the Musée de l’Orangerie is organizing an exhibition focusing on his body of work’s relationship with time. In the 1870s, he was regarded as the impressionist artist par excellence, even though he only took part in five of the group’s exhibitions. In the 1890s, with such series as Les cathédrale [The Cathedrals], Les meules [The Haystacks] and Les peupliers [The Poplars], the painter adopted an approach that almost seemed to be dissecting time, until the final testament of the Nymphéas [Water Lilies] series, which solved the seemingly insurmountable problem of fragmentation and so merged into the continuum.

Claude Monet, Sunset , between 1914 and 1926 - Courtesy of the artist and Musée de l'Orangerie.