Flowers on the Riverbank at Argenteuil

Painted in 1877, this work depicts the Argenteuil promenade looking downstream from the bank of the river Seine. Monet moved to Argenteuil, a suburb near Paris, in 1871, and lived there for six years. Inspired by the picturesque scenery of the Seine that coexisted harmoniously with such emblems of modern life as smokestacks, boaters, and well-dressed strollers, he painted a number of views of the region. 

In the 1870s, Argenteuil was booming with signs of modernization and industrialization, and was one of the fastest growing regions in the vicinity of Paris. With the advance of the steamboat and railway, the Argenteuil path along the Seine became a popular promenade, rather than a commercial route as it had been in the past. During this time, Monet often experimented with a high horizon line, and the present composition is dominated by wild vegetation in the foreground, with only about half of the canvas opening up to the view of the river and the sky above it. The far bank of this view was populated by a saw mill, a tannery, an iron factory, as well as by residential houses around them. 

Monet, however, chose to crop some of these signs of industrialized world out of his painting. He carefully selected his viewpoint in order to edit out the common commercial traffic on the Seine and the factories with their smokestacks, and to maximize the natural elements. In doing so, Monet wished to capture the secluded, tranquil atmosphere that had characterized the area, glorifying its idyllic, unspoilt past rather than its bustling, modernized present. In 1877 Monet painted only four canvases of Argenteuil, all of them showing the town and river from a similar vantage point.