Autumn on the Seine at Argenteuil

Monet painted this work during the most productive phase of his years at Argenteuil, where he lived from 1871 to 1878. It was in this village, just eight kilometres northwest of Paris by rail, that Impressionism found its fullest early form: the combination of ready-made tube paint, portable easels, and fast train connections allowed Monet and his colleagues to work directly before the motif in all seasons. The autumn of 1873 was especially fertile; Monet was producing at a remarkable rate, financially comfortable after early sales, and deeply focused on the problem of rendering the optical truth of light on moving and still water. The Argenteuil period paintings were central to the first Impressionist group exhibition of 1874, in which this strain of plein-air river painting was among the work that drew both ridicule and the first serious critical attention the movement received. Today the Argenteuil canvases are regarded as the definitive statement of early Impressionism, and this picture stands among the finest of them for the subtlety with which it holds an entire season in a single afternoon light.