Barbara Dawson selects Lavacourt under Snow by Claude Monet (1840–1926)
The painting Lavacourt under Snow (1879–80) was created by Claude Monet during one of the most brutal winters on record in France, when the River Seine froze over. It was also a period of crises in the artist’s life. Monet moved out of Paris to pursue his singular vision of landscape painting, concentrating on the effects of shifting light on everyday scenes, capturing the changes wrought on his subject matter by various weather conditions, seasons and times of day. At this time he was in severe financial straits, as the sale of his paintings was slow and his wife Camille was extremely ill. In 1878, Monet moved his family to the small village of Vétheuil. His son Michel was born that year, but sadly Camille died the following year. Despite his many challenges, Monet produced a superb suite of landscapes of the area from many different viewpoints, including from a sailboat, which he converted into a floating studio.
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