À propos de l’œuvre
Champs de Poppy près d'Argentieu, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · The plain of Gennevilliers in bloom · Metropolitan Museum of Art
Poppy fields near Argenteuil W380hand painted reproduction
A vast field of flowers extends under a sky covered with clouds. On the right, a woman protected by an umbrella advances through the grass; on the left, several trees rise from the foreground and give the measure of space. The red poppies do not form a continuous sheet: a few scattered accents are enough to make the greens, blues and yellows of the Gennevilliers plain vibrate.
Look at the work
The nearby trees, the isolated figure and the red touches open the plain to the horizon
Two groups of trees occupy the left part and stand out against the clouds. Their green and purple foliage extends almost to the lower edge. On the right, the dark walker, wearing a light hat, forms the main human accent among the flowers.
The field is constructed by short touches of green, yellow, blue and red. They tighten and flatten towards the horizon, where a few houses and trees barely appear. The sky occupies almost half of the canvas and takes up the blues of the landscape in wider passages.
A few poppies are enough to color the entire field: their red can be read by contrast and makes the greens vibrate well beyond each touch.
Composition, touch and light
What Monet builds behind the impression of snapshot
Three precise elements allow us to understand this composition and the essential difficulties of faithful reproduction.
A foreground that does not impose a path
No road leads the gaze. The depth arises from the decreasing size of the keys, the overlap of the trees and the placement of the figure in the middle of the plain.
The walker as a measure and not as a story
His silhouette is too small to become a portrait. It gives scale to the field, introduces vertical movement and balances the trees which concentrate the mass on the left.
One of four views from the summer of 1875
The Metropolitan Museum links the work to four neighboring paintings executed in the Gennevilliers plain, southeast of Argenteuil. Monet thus takes up a theme that he had already painted two years previously.
Reference image
Read this specific version
The file corresponds to the 2001.202.5 inventory of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Wildenstein number 380. The reference image was reduced to 3,000 × 2,219 px then encoded in WebP.
Reds remain rare but frank
The poppies are placed in small irregular touches, more visible in the foreground. Multiplying them evenly would transform the field into a decorative pattern and reduce its depth.
Trees do not form a continuous screen
The sky appears between the branches and separates the two groups. These openings circulate air and prevent the left part from becoming too heavy.
The clouds return to the direction of the key
Whites, blues and grays are placed in horizontal or oblique passages. Their movement responds to grass while maintaining a wider scale in the sky.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
Painted in 1875, this oil on canvas measures 54 × 73.7 cm. It is kept at the Metropolitan Museum of Art under the inventory 2001.202.5 and listed as Wildenstein 380.
The Gennevilliers plain southeast of Argenteuil
Monet explored open land on the other side of the Seine during the summer of 1875. The four variants combine flowering fields, trees and suburban horizons under different lights.
A larger revival of the poppies of 1873
The Met compares this series to the famous painting painted two years earlier and kept at the Musée d'Orsay. Here, the figure is more isolated and the field occupies a less narrative, almost continuous extent.
Gift and legacy Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg
The work entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the Annenberg collection: donation in 2001 then bequest from Walter H. Annenberg in 2002. It bears the 2001.202.5 inventory and is presented in European paintings.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- Keep the poppies scattered and irregular.
- Preserve the walker's small ladder.
- Open the sky between groups of trees.
- Gradually decrease key size towards the horizon.
Work sheet
| Title | Poppy fields near Argenteuil W380 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1875 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 54 × 73.7 cm |
| Orientation | Horizontal |
| Conservation | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States |
| Inventory | 2001.202.5 · Wildenstein 380 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
This bright landscape is suitable for a living room, bedroom or dining room. A light oak, deep green or matte gold frame accompanies the fields; diffused light reveals the reds without hardening the blues of the sky.
