Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies

In 1893 Monet bought a strip of marshy land across the railway line from his house at Giverny, with a small pond fed by a stream drawn off the river Epte. He wanted it, in his own words, for the pleasure of the eye and for motifs to paint. Late that year a wooden footbridge in the Japanese manner went up over the water. In the summer of 1899 he gave the whole warm season to that bridge, and the following year the dealer Durand-Ruel showed 12 of the bridge canvases together in Paris. Most of them are almost square. This one is taller than it is wide, one of only two in that format, which gives the lilies more of the picture. It also leaves out the clump of irises that stands beside the bridge in the others. The real bridge rested on seven supports, and only four show here. The dark red curve along the bottom edge is the bridge's shadow on the water.