Die Elster

Monet painted this in the winter of 1868 into 1869, out in the snow near Etretat on the Normandy coast, working from a low wicker fence with a single magpie perched on the gate. He was broke and mostly unknown at the time. Look at the shadows on the snow: they are not black but faint blue and violet, the colour real daylight throws. That was the radical part. When he sent it to the Paris Salon in 1869 the jury turned it down as too common and too coarse. The bird is the only dark accent in a field of white, and it is easy to miss on first glance.