埃普特河畔的白杨树

In 1890, halfway through painting these poplars along the river Epte near his home at Giverny, Claude Monet got bad news. The local commune had put the trees up for sale to be cut down for timber. So he made a deal, paying a timber merchant to buy them and leave them standing a few more months until he had finished. Monet worked the series from a broad, flat-bottomed boat moored in the river, moving from canvas to canvas as the light and weather shifted through 1891. He was chasing the same thing he chased in his haystacks that year, the particular hour and air around the trees more than the trees themselves. When he showed 15 of the poplar canvases in Paris in 1892, several sold before the doors had even opened.