À propos de l’œuvre
Le Jardin de l’artiste, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · Dahlias and family home in the Argenteuil garden · National Gallery of Art
The Artist's Garden in Argenteuil W286hand painted reproduction
An exuberant mass of red, pink, yellow and white dahlias invades the foreground in front of Monet's light house. Two small figures stand near the fence, on the right, under the trees that frame the sky. In 1873, the painter made his own garden a laboratory of colors where flowers, foliage and architecture receive the same vibrant touch.
Look at the work
The dahlias form a cloud of color in front of the Argenteuil house
The massif occupies the left two thirds and rises almost to the windows. The flowers are indicated by touches of scarlet, pink, yellow and white, taken in very varied greens. A narrow passage goes around this mass and leads towards the fence.
The white house appears in fragments between flowers and trees, with its blue-green shutters and brown roof. On the right, two tiny figures converse near the fence. A curved tree follows the edge of the format and brings the eye back to the cloudy sky.
The garden is not a setting arranged around the house: the dahlias gain the space of the painting and become an architecture of color.
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 deliberately oversized floral foreground
The framing places the massif very close to the viewer. Its height hides part of the facade and reverses the traditional hierarchy between house, characters and vegetation.
The touch distributes attention across the entire surface
Flowers, leaves, grasses and clouds are constructed by visible marks of varying width. No general outline encloses the massif, which remains crossed by the air.
The house stabilizes the plant profusion
Its light walls and rectangular windows offer some calm shapes behind the multiple touches. The blue shutters respond to the sky and cool the reds of the flowers.
Reference image
Read this specific version
The visual corresponds to the Artist's Garden in Argenteuil from 1873, inventory 1991.27.1 from the National Gallery of Art and catalog Wildenstein 286. The unique WebP measures 3,000 × 2,245 px, produced from the open image of 4 000 px without artificial enlargement.
Flowers should not be painted one by one
Red, yellow, pink and white appear in groups of varying density. A few sharper shapes are enough to suggest dahlias amid a general vibration.
The greens change depending on the depth
Blue greens in the shadows, yellow greens on the lit leaves and almost gray tones around the house separate the plans without rigid drawing.
The facade remains atmospheric
Its whites are mixed with cream, blue and gray. Windows and shutters must remain legible without acquiring greater clarity than the garden.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
Painted and signed in 1873, this oil on canvas measures 61 × 82.5 cm. It is kept at the National Gallery of Art under inventory 1991.27.1 and bears the number Wildenstein 286.
The garden of the house rented by Monet in Argenteuil
The Monet family lived in this town from 1871 to 1878. The painter observed daily the plantations, the house and the relatives who became subjects in their own right.
A corner of the garden with dahlias
The National Gallery completes the title The Artist's Garden in Argenteuil with A Corner of the Garden with Dahlias. The multicolored massif is indeed the dominant motif.
A work purchased from Monet in December 1873
Durand-Ruel acquired it from the artist the same year of its execution. Janice H. Levin later offered it to the National Gallery in honor of the museum's fiftieth anniversary.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- Keep the floral mass ample and irregular.
- Vary the reds without saturating the entire area.
- Keep the house clear but set back.
- Keep both figures small near the fence.
Work sheet
| Title | The Artist's Garden in Argenteuil W286 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1873 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 61 × 82.5 cm |
| Orientation | Horizontal |
| Conservation | National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, United States |
| Inventory | 1991.27.1 · Wildenstein 286 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
This abundant garden is suitable for a living room, dining room or bedroom. A light oak, off-white or matte gold frame accompanies the house; a sage green, gray blue or pale pink wall brings out the dahlias.
