The Bridge at Argenteuil

Claude Monet

Oil on canvas

National Gallery of Art

Painted in 1874 — the landmark year of the first Impressionist exhibition — Claude Monet's *The Bridge at Argenteuil* depicts a sun-drenched scene along the Seine River near the Parisian suburb where the artist was then living. The composition presents pleasure boats moored in the shimmering foreground water, with the stone highway bridge angling diagonally across the canvas against a bright blue sky scattered with clouds, flanked by riverside buildings and emerald trees. Executed outdoors in the Impressionist manner, Monet employed loose, spontaneous brushwork to capture the transient effects of light and atmosphere rather than precise descriptive detail, a radical departure from Academic convention. Born in Paris in 1840 and raised in Normandy, Monet became the central figure of French Impressionism, and the Argenteuil years represent one of the most productive and stylistically defining periods of his career.