Water Lilies (Agapanthus)
A skilled horticulturalist as well as an artist, Claude Monet spent the last 30 years of his life painting the private garden he designed and helped cultivate at his home in Giverny in northern France. The resultant canvases are notable for their varied motifs, formats, and sizes. Monumental in scale, this rendering of his water lily pond focuses on the momentary effects of sunlight as it both penetrates and reflects off its shimmering surface. By zeroing in on the water and omitting its horizon and surrounding banks, Monet infers a limitless expanse—a perception amplified by the painting’s...
Details
- Palette
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Select a color to find related artworks.
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- framed: height 2.049 m, width 4.303 m, depth 0.06 m; unframed: height 2.013 m, width 4.256 m
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- John L. Severance Fund and an anonymous gift
Art Genome Taxonomy
9 tags
Subject Matter
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Waterscapes Both · 99%
The museum identifies the subject as Monet’s water-lily pond, while the image is dominated by a broad reflective water surface.
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Flora Both · 97%
Water lilies and aquatic vegetation are visible across the composition, and the title and museum description identify the water-lily pond as the subject.
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Light as Subject Both · 95%
The museum description explicitly emphasizes sunlight penetrating and reflecting across the pond; visually, pale reflective passages and shimmering highlights organize the surface.
Styles and Movements
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Impressionism Visual · 86%
The image’s emphasis on transient light, reflected color, softened contours, and perceptible brushwork is strongly consistent with Impressionist practice; the supplied metadata does not explicitly list a style.
Medium and Techniques
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Painting Both · 99%
The canonical classification identifies the work as a painting, and the image visibly shows a painted, brushworked surface.
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Oil Painting Metadata · 99%
The canonical medium is explicitly recorded as oil on canvas.
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Large Brushstrokes/Loose Brushwork Visual · 90%
Short, overlapping, visibly worked strokes build the water, reflections, submerged growth, and foliage without sharply defined contours.
Time Periods
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Modern Metadata · 94%
The work is dated c. 1915–26 and is held in the museum’s Department of Modern European Painting and Sculpture, supporting placement in the modern period.
Geographic Regions
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French Art Metadata · 99%
The canonical record identifies Monet as French and gives France as the place of origin.
Source & rights
Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926). Water Lilies (Agapanthus). Cleveland Museum of Art.