Branch of the Seine near Giverny (Mist)

Claude Monet

Oil on canvas

Art Institute of Chicago

Painted in 1897 as part of his celebrated Mornings on the Seine series, this oil on canvas by Claude Monet depicts a hushed, mist-shrouded morning at the confluence of the Epte River and the Seine near Giverny, France. The composition envelops the viewer in a soft palette of blues, purples, and muted greens, with overhanging foliage and its riverine reflections dissolving into an atmosphere of almost abstract stillness. Monet executed the series from a flat-bottomed boat anchored to the riverbank, working on multiple canvases in succession as the light shifted from dawn to day. A leading figure of French Impressionism, Monet dedicated his mature practice to recording the transient effects of light and atmosphere, and this work—with its near-dissolution of form into color—anticipates the radical abstraction of his later Water Lilies.