Claude Monet, 'Flood Waters', 1896

In the years after he settled in Giverny in 1883, Monet began exploring the nearby area looking for subjects to paint. He was increasingly interested in making series of paintings showing the same subject in different light and weather conditions. In 1890 he painted 25 pictures of haystacks in the nearby fields; 1891 he painted 23 pictures of poplars which lined the left bank of the river Epte south of Giverny; and about the time this picture was painted he was working on a series of views of the Seine in the early morning light, as seen from his studio boat on the river.

While this painting shows the same concern with weather effects and atmospheric harmony as the series pictures, it was not conceived as part of a series. It is a record of the extensive flood caused by torrential rain that fell in the autumn of 1896, when the Epte burst its banks and overflowed into the meadow next to Monet’s property. Obliged to remain close to home, Monet painted the waterlogged landscape that he saw in front of him, including the row of pollarded willows that stood on the edge of the meadow which he had only recently painted bathed in the glorious spring sunshine.

The picture appears to be unfinished, and may have been produced on the spot. It is almost as though Monet was trying to find a pictorial equivalent for the watery subject matter. The palette is restricted to pale greys, greens and mauves; the tree branches are brushed in with fine, rapid strokes and the sky and the water are conveyed in fluid sweeps and washes. The canvas has been left bare in areas at the top and bottom, adding to the impression that this is a quickly made sketch. It may be a study for another picture, perhaps painted in the studio, now in a private collection in Switzerland. That work is painted from a similar viewpoint but shows more of the foreground and the upper parts of the trees, and the reflections in the calmer waters are more prominent.

Ironically, it was the waters of the Epte that fed the pool that Monet had dug three years previously to create his water garden at Giverny. Designed to feature aquatic plants, to delight the eye and provide him with an inexhaustible subject to paint, it would eventually feature a Japanese footbridge and a lavish display of waterlilies.