The Path through the Irises

Claude Monet

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Keywords: PathIrises

Work Overview

The Path through the Irises
Artist: Claude Monet (French, Paris 1840–1926 Giverny)
Date: 1914–17
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 78 7/8 x 70 7/8 in. (200.3 x 180 cm)


Irises, among Monet's favorite flowers, lined the pathways leading up to the house and Japanese bridge on the artist's property at Giverny. This bird's-eye view of a garden path belongs to a series of monumental works painted during the First World War that capture the vital essence of these flowers with intensity and breadth of vision. Late in life, as his eyesight faltered, he dispensed with subtlety and "took in the motif in large masses," waiting "until the idea took shape, until the arrangement and composition inscribed themselves on the brain."