Water Lilies

Water Lilies, painted by Claude Monet in nineteen oh six. You are in Gallery two forty three of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the number on the label is 1933.1157.

This gallery tends to draw a crowd, so give yourself a moment to find a clear spot in front of it. Once you do, notice how large the canvas is, big enough that it fills your view if you stand close.

What you are looking at is a pond. Monet built this pond himself, in his garden at Giverny in France, and spent years painting it in every light and season. There is no horizon here, no sky you can point to and name. Just water, lilies, and whatever reflection happens to be passing through.

So do this. Stand close first, close enough that the brushstrokes stop looking like flowers and start looking like just paint, dabbed and dragged. Then step back, several paces, and watch the flowers gather themselves back out of the mess. That flicker, between paint and pond, is the whole point of standing here.

Most people expect a picture of flowers. What Monet gives you instead is a picture of looking, of how your eye assembles a water lily out of color before you even decide to see one. He was in his sixties when he painted this, his eyesight already changing, and he kept returning to this same small patch of water for the rest of his life, as if one pond could hold an endless number of paintings.

While you are here, try losing the edges of the canvas from your attention. Let the water fill your sight the way it must have filled his garden. Then find one single brushstroke, just one, and follow where it goes.