I always saw this painting as a kid, and I didn’t know it was in a series of 250 separate oil paintings, all of water lilies.

(view the full sized image here)

I gave identifying info about this work to Perplexity with the instructions to research it and tell me all the interesting things it could about the work. Here’s what we got:

Floating Worlds: The 1906 “Nymphéas” That Swept Monet—and Us—Into the Water

Two strokes of a pond-scene brush, and you’re suddenly adrift on Monet’s mirror of sky, staring down instead of up, searching for a horizon that isn’t there. Around you, rose-pink lilies idle like party guests on a turquoise dance floor while wisps of willow reflections drift past like slow lanterns on a summer river. Welcome to Monet’s 1906 canvas “Nymphéas,” better known in English as “Water Lilies,” occasionally catalogued as “Le bassin aux nymphéas” by curators seeking poetic precision.

Sensing the Scene

Picture a square of water nearly the width of a grand piano—89.9 × 94.1 cm—tilted upright for inspection. No land, no bridge, no sky; instead, a suspended world of lily pads, some brushed with cobalt-violet shadows, others topped by vermilion-and-lake blooms that quiver with whispered breezes. Azure ultramarine veils the upper third, suggesting sky-shine; olive viridian streaks below hint at grasses waving beneath the surface. The eye cannot decide whether it is peering down into depth or outward across distance, and that wobble is precisely Monet’s magic.

A Moment in 1906: France on the Cusp

When Monet signed the work in 1906, Paris was roaring with motorcars, the Eiffel Tower was barely seventeen, and the first rumblings of Cubism were still hidden in Picasso’s Montmartre studio. France’s Third Republic basked in a fragile peace just three decades after the Franco-Prussian War and eight years before World War I would shatter Impressionism’s sunlit calm. Monet—the elder statesman of the movement—had retreated to his garden at Giverny, determined to outpaint time itself.

Giverny, Monet’s Living Laboratory

To stage this aquatic drama, Monet rerouted a tributary of the River Epte in 1893, winning a bureaucratic battle against nervous neighbors who feared “poisonous” exotics might invade their fields. He ordered hybrid lilies—some pink, some yellow, some tender snow-white—from Joseph Bory Latour-Marliac’s pioneering nursery in 1894, 1901, and 1904, treating each delivery like rare pigments straight from nature’s factory. By 1906, his pond had tripled in size and sported a Japanese-style bridge, swaying wisteria, and willow curtains that whispered against the water at dusk.

Technical Alchemy: Canvas, Colors, and Chemistry

Oil on a commercially primed canvas forms the backbone of this piece, yet its heartbeat lies in Monet’s kaleidoscopic palette. Scientific sampling by Art Institute conservators reveals a veritable catalog of 19th-century color innovation—lead white impasto peaks, French ultramarine washes, viridian greens, and shimmering cobalt violets, all squeezed fresh from industrial metal tubes that liberated artists to paint outdoors. Micro-analysis also uncovered cadmium yellow glints, zinc white modifiers, and vermilion flashes, layered wet-on-wet, then glazed with a thin beeswax-rich varnish.

Composition Without a Compass

Monet amputated the horizon, rejecting traditional depth cues to trap the viewer inside an endless plane of water. The result is a floating scroll where reflections masquerade as objects and lilies double as clouds—a gentle vertigo that nudges viewers toward abstraction years before Kandinsky or Rothko picked up a brush. Thick diagonal brush-marks paddle across the surface like oar-strokes, while gaps between strokes allow previous layers to glimmer through, mimicking dapples of sun that flicker across real water.

Obsession Painted Thin

“These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession.” Monet confessed as much in an August 1908 letter, fretting that the effort was “beyond the strength of an old man.” He worked from dawn to dusk, juggling multiple canvases on movable easels—each tuned to a specific light effect—racing the sun across the pond. At sixty-six, arthritis pressed, cataracts loomed, yet he scraped off entire passages when the mirror lied and began again, chasing fidelity to sensation, not surface.

1909 Boulevards Abuzz

By the time forty-eight of these “landscapes of water” debuted at Durand-Ruel’s Paris gallery in 1909, critics called them “symphonies of reflection,” collectors emptied purses, and the French state began lobbying for mural-scale versions. No painting sold faster than the 1906 jewel now in Chicago; within a generation it would sail across the Atlantic, cementing America’s love affair with Impressionism.

Chicago’s Lily Pad

Chicago philanthropists Martin and Carrie Ryerson acquired the picture and, in 1933, donated it to the Art Institute—accession 1933.1157—where it hangs today in Gallery 243, still stamped “Claude Monet 1906” on the lower right. There it anchors the museum’s “Monet and Chicago” narrative, bridging Midwestern steel with French water-silk every year thousands lean in to inspect those trembling pink blooms.

Ripples Through Modern Art & Science

The square forced Picasso to rethink flatness; it fed Pollock’s drip dreams; it schooled color scientists on pigment stability as ultramarine met ultraviolet scanners. Even botanists stroll the galleries, cross-referencing lily hybrids against Latour-Marliac’s 19-century nursery invoices, marveling that Monet’s art now guides horticultural DNA sleuthing.

Claude Monet: The Man Behind the Mirror

Born in 1840 on Normandy’s coast, Oscar-Claude Monet grew from caricature prodigy to plein-air revolutionary, co-founding Impressionism with the 1874 canvas “Impression, Sunrise.” After decades of series painting—haystacks, poplars, parliament fog—he settled permanently at Giverny in 1883. There, between spectacles of light and bouts of failing sight, he built a garden “for the pleasure of the eye … and for motifs to paint,” nursing it until his death in 1926. The 1906 “Nymphéas” captures him mid-stride: eyesight sharp, colors vibrant, ambitions rising like lilies toward the sun.

And so, every time you pause in front of that Chicago square, remember: you’re not just looking at flowers—you’re standing on Monet’s private footbridge, watching reflections flicker, hearing willows sigh, sensing the brush of August air on water Monet turned to paint, then to legend.

And that's it!

If you have any details you think Perplexity left out, reply to this email and I'll adjust my prompt to nudge it to include it next time.

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Thanks for reading!

-JP

Current prompt: I want you to create a newsletter post describing the fun and exciting stories around a painting. It should be a newsletter read for leisure and should be an enjoyable read (not just a list of facts) here's what you’re gonna do: Find the name of the following painting in its original language and any alternative names it goes by. Then Research the painting and give me blurb telling me all you can about the artist, the historical context/events it was created in, the style, the materials used, the composition and visual elements, the story/underlying message, what inspired the work/what it meant to the author, and whatever other info you find that helps give a complete understanding of the work. A description of what is depicted (mention subjects) should be the first thing, while the “biography” of the artist should be last. if the work has a lot of meaning behind it, then that is what the meat of the newsletter should be. Besides that you are free to present the information in a concise and captivating way, with the most interesting and novel stuff closest to the top. Order the presentation of information for which pieces have the most compelling and interesting story to tell. At least some of the description should be formatted like a story. [for example: a couple sits on a bench watching the sunset while a man next to them…]. ONLY include information that is for THIS SPECIFIC PAINTING. you will find info on paintings similar to this one but NOT this one. OMMIT INFO ABOUT SUCH PIECES. remember, the goal is to make the most compelling, intriguing, and fun to read newsletter as possible, so keep that above all else.