Village Street, Vétheuil

Monet moved his family to the small town of Vetheuil on the Seine in 1878, broke and out of favor with the dealers. 1879 was the hardest year of it. His wife Camille died there that September at just 32, and the winter that followed was one of the coldest of the century, cold enough to freeze the river solid. This is a village street in that winter, roofs and road packed under snow, painted in short broken strokes that catch a flat grey light. Monet kept working outdoors through the freeze, sometimes standing in the snow, and made a whole run of these snowbound Vetheuil views over those months.