À propos de l’œuvre
La Débâcle, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · Frozen Seine · 1882 · W571
The W571 Debaclehand painted reproduction
Plates of ice break up on the Seine and reflect a pale sky between two banks of bare trees. Painted in 1882, La Débâcle is an oil on canvas mounted at 61.5 × 100 cm kept at the Kunstmuseum Bern under number G 1870; it corresponds to Wildenstein 571.
Look at the work
Ice transforms the Seine into a mosaic of cold light
The river occupies most of the elongated format. The trees form a dark strip on the left bank while the opposite bank, lower, opens the perspective towards the distance.
Blue grays, mauves, whites and browns are placed in short touches. The pieces of ice interrupt the vertical reflections and give the water a slow, heavy, almost silent movement.
The subject is not just winter: it is the moment when a still surface becomes common again, and the sky fragments in each patch of ice.
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 panoramic format to follow the river
The proportions of 61.5 × 100 cm stretch the Seine and let the gaze circulate between the ice, the trees and the opening of the sky.
Water-broken verticals
The trunks and their reflections form a dark network that the light plates interrupt. This opposition makes the thaw visible.
The debacle as a winter series
Monet observed the breaking of the ice on the Seine several times. Each canvas combines a precise state of water, a different time and light.
Reference image
Read this specific version
Only one exact image of W571 is used. The real WebP measures 1024 × 658 px, without artificial enlargement.
Maintain the faint light of the sky
The sky should not turn pure white. Its bluish grays determine the entire temperature of the painting.
Distinguish between ice and reflection
The light plates have irregular edges, while the reflections descend in vertical touches. Their difference makes us understand the phenomenon.
Preserve trees as a discontinuous mass
They do not form a compact silhouette. The intervals between the trunks allow the bank and the distance to breathe.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
The Kunstmuseum Bern preserves La Débâcle, oil on mounted canvas from 1882, 61.5 × 100 cm, inventory G 1870 and Wildenstein 571.
The breaking of the ice on the Seine
After a period of frost, the plates come loose and drift. Monet makes it as much a light pattern as a weather event.
Kunstmuseum Bern
The work is recorded under G 1870 and entered the museum thanks to the Eugen Loeb bequest of Muri bei Bern.
The Wildenstein 571 canvas
Its large format, the row of trees on the left and the clear ice in the foreground allow it to be identified among the different Debacles.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- The Wildenstein 571 version
- The 100 cm panoramic format
- Irregular ice patches
- The vertical reflections of bare trees
Work sheet
| Title | The W571 Debacle |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1882 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 61.5 × 100 cm |
| Orientation | Horizontal |
| Conservation | Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern, Switzerland |
| Inventory | G 1870 · Wildenstein 571 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
This winter landscape is suitable for a quiet living room, bedroom or office. A pearl gray, smoky blue or off-white wall and a dark setting extend its light.
