À propos de l’œuvre
L'église de San Giorgio Maggiore, à Venise, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · 1908 · Newfields 70.76 · W1749
The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice W1749hand painted reproduction
San Giorgio Maggiore unfolds in pastel light where the Palladian facade, the dome and the campanile seem made of the same material as the sky. Small gondolas slide in front of the island. Monet keeps the architecture readable while crossing it with roses, yellows, blues and greens reflected by the lagoon.
Look at the work
San Giorgio Maggiore bathed in pink and blue light, with gondolas as the only moving accents
The campanile rises to the left, then the classic facade and its dome shift the gaze towards the center. The monastery buildings extend the island to the right edge. The horizon is high enough to give the lagoon a vast foreground, animated by several dark boats.
The stone receives lemon, salmon pink, turquoise and lilac tones. The reflections do not obey strict symmetry: they disperse in small horizontal touches in the water. Gondolas and a few stakes create the darkest contrasts, but remain colored by the surrounding blue and purple.
W1749 does not separate the church from its atmosphere: light continually circulates from the facade to the lagoon and from the reflection to the sky.
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 work documented by Newfields
The painting is numbered 70.76 and belongs to the Lockton Collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. The notice links it to the San Giorgio Maggiore group and the Wildenstein 1749 catalog.
Architecture subordinate to reflections
Newfields points out that Monet reduces architectural details to highlight the light and color reflected on surfaces. The facade remains identifiable thanks to a few axes: campanile, pediment, dome and low line of the monastery.
Gondolas as cuts in a pastel network
The boats are small dark accents within water entirely woven in light colors. They give scale, orient the horizontal reading and prevent the lagoon from becoming a simple decorative tablecloth.
Reference image
Read this specific version
The only reference image comes from the high definition file Newfields - Google Arts. It was reduced from 6,702 to 3,200 px wide and converted into a real WebP, without artificial enlargement.
A dominant vertical and a stretched island
The campanile structures the left third. The facade and the dome form a lower group, then the monastic buildings extend the composition. This floor gives depth despite the almost frontal view.
Pink, lemon yellow, turquoise blue and lilac
The colors respond to each other on the sky, stone and water. Faithful reproduction must maintain their temperature differences and avoid reducing the church to neutral white.
A short, layered touch
The layers are particularly readable in the lagoon: blue, pink and yellow touches intersect without uniform mixing. On the architecture, the gesture becomes more vertical in order to suggest volumes.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
This information precisely identifies the Newfields 70.76 canvas, Wildenstein 1749 catalog.
Newfields 70.76, W1749
This 1908 oil on canvas measures 26 1/8 × 36 7/8 inches, or approximately 66.4 × 93.7 cm. It is preserved by the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.
Parisian merchants at the Lockton Collection
After the Venetian exhibition of 1912, the work passed through Bernheim-Jeune and Durand-Ruel. Richard C. Lockton acquired it after the Parke-Bernet sale in 1965, then offered it to the museum in 1970.
Presented in Paris in 1912
The Newfields notice indicates that the painting appeared in the Claude Monet exhibition "Venice" at Bernheim-Jeune, under number 13, before joining several major international retrospectives.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- The Newfields 70.76 and Wildenstein 1749 version
- The original format of approximately 66.4 × 93.7 cm
- The Palladian facade kept colorful rather than white
- Gondolas and stakes preserved as dark accents at the right scale
Work sheet
| Title | The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice W1749 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1908 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 66.4 × 93.7 cm |
| Orientation | Horizontal |
| Conservation | Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Indianapolis, United States |
| Inventory | 70.76 · Wildenstein 1749 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
Salmon pink, lemon yellow, turquoise, lilac and lagoon blue give this reproduction a rich but delicate light. It works particularly well on a cream or warm gray wall, with a discreet gold or light wood frame.
