Claude Monet | Promenades / Le passeggiate

With Manet's🎨 assistance, Monet🎨 found lodging in suburban Argenteuil in late 1871, a move that initiated one of the most fertile phases of his career.

Impressionism evolved in the late 1860s from a desire to create full-scale, multi-figure depictions of ordinary people in casual outdoor situations. At its purest, impressionism was attuned to landscape painting, a subject Monet favored.

In Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son, his skill as a figure painter is equally evident. Contrary to the artificial conventions of academic portraiture, Monet delineated the features of his sitters as freely as their surroundings.

Claude Monet🎨 | The Promenade, Woman with a Parasol, 1875

Claude Monet | The Promenade, Woman with a Parasol, 1875 (study)

The spontaneity and naturalness of the resulting image were praised when it appeared in the second impressionist exhibition in 1876.

Woman with a Parasol was painted outdoors, probably in a single session of several hours' duration. The artist intended the work to convey the feeling of a casual family outing rather than a formal portrait, and used pose and placement to suggest that his wife and son interrupted their stroll while he captured their likenesses.

The brevity of the moment portrayed here is conveyed by a repertory of animated brushstrokes of vibrant color, hallmarks of the style Monet** was instrumental in forming. Bright sunlight shines from behind Camille to whiten the top of her parasol and the flowing cloth at her back, while colored reflections from the wildflowers below touch her front with yellow. | © National Gallery of Art

Claude Monet | Jeanne-Marguerite Lecadre in the Garden, 1866

Claude Monet | La promenade (Poppies)

Claude Monet | La promenade d'Argenteuil un soir d'hiver, 1875

Claude Monet | La promenade d'Argenteuil

Claude Monet | La promenade d'Argenteuil un soir d'hiver

Claude Monet | La promenade d'Argenteuil

Claude Monet | Prairie de Limetz, 1887

Claude Monet | Promenade at the Louvre

Claude Monet | Promenade près d'Argenteuil, 1875

Claude Monet Promenade sur la falaise Pourville, 1882

Claude Monet | Promenade sur la falaise Pourville, 1882 (detail)

Claude Monet | Road Toward the Farm, Saint-Simeon

Claude Monet | The basin at Argenteuil

Claude Monet The Promenade (study), 1886

Claude Monet | The Promenade at Argenteuil II, 1872

Claude Monet | The Promenade at Argenteuil, Soleil Couchant, 1874

Claude Monet | The Promenade at Argenteuil, Winter`s Evening, 1875

Claude Monet | The Promenade near the Bridge of Argenteuil, 1874

Claude Monet | The Promenade, Argenteuil, 1875

Claude Monet | The summer, poppy field, 1875

Claude Monet | Walk in the Meadows at Argenteuil, 1873

Claude Monet | Winter

Claude Monet Woman with a Parasol in the Garden in Argenteuil, 1875

La passeggiata (Camille Monet con il figlio Jean sulla collina) è un dipinto a olio su tela (100 cm x 81 cm) realizzato nel 1875 da Claude Monet🎨. È conservato nella National Gallery di Washington.

Il bagliore dorato delle nuvole e i vibranti riverberi gialli nella vegetazione, ci fanno capire che il sole è molto caldo e che Camille Monet e il figlio Jean hanno fatto bene a proteggersi con il cappellino e l'ombrello.

Siamo ad Argenteuil nell'estate del 1875 ed il pittore sta fissando sulla tela la passeggiata in collina della moglie e del figlio, fermando così per sempre quel breve periodo di grande felicità familiare.

Eppure Camille Monet sembra avere un inspiegabile velo di tristezza nello sguardo, quasi a presagire l'ineluttabilità di quel destino che, appena quattro anni dopo, sarà così severo con lei.