Tulip Fields

Claude Monet

Oil on canvas

Musée d'Orsay

Painted during Monet's spring 1886 visit to the Netherlands, this luminous oil on canvas depicts the celebrated Dutch tulip fields in full bloom, with bands of vivid colour — reds, yellows, pinks, and whites — stretching in geometric rows across a flat, expansive landscape beneath a cloud-filled sky. A windmill rises in the distance, anchoring the composition within an unmistakably Dutch setting, while ribbon-like canals reflect the brilliance of the flowers below. Executed in Monet's characteristic Impressionist style, the work favours energetic, loose brushstrokes over precise botanical detail, prioritising the optical sensation of colour and light over literal description. Born in Paris in 1840, Monet was a founding figure of French Impressionism, and this series of Dutch flower field paintings stands among his most celebrated plein-air landscape works.