Autumn Effect at Argenteuil

Argenteuil was still patching itself up in 1873. Prussian troops had occupied the town during the war two years earlier, and the place that came back afterwards was turning industrial. Ironworks and chemical plants were opening along the Seine, and commuters rode in from Paris by train. Monet had moved out of the city at the end of 1871, and he painted this view from a small studio boat moored in a quiet side channel. Autumn trees take up most of the canvas. The town sits across the water, and in the middle of it the church tower stands right beside a factory chimney. He roughed up the foliage by scratching into the wet paint with the handle of his brush, and laid the water in as thick parallel strokes of blue. He sent the picture to the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876.