Das Creuse-Tal, Sonnenuntergang

In the spring of 1889 Monet spent March to May in the hamlet of Fresselines, in central France, painting the same rocky river valley over and over. He made about 14 canvases here, following the Creuse through changing weather and light, and this one catches the water and hills going red at sunset. There's a story from that stay. Monet had begun painting an old oak in bare winter form, then spring arrived and the tree started to leaf. Rather than lose his composition, he paid the local men to climb up and strip the new buds off, so he could finish it as he had started. That June the whole Creuse group went on show in Paris at the Galerie Georges Petit, hung alongside sculptures by Rodin.