Lavacourt under Snow

The Impressionists loved snow scenes. Claude Monet painted several canvases that explore the way sunlight plays upon the snow, reflecting tones of red, pink, purple, and blue at different times of the day. He produced this scene of Lavacourt, a tiny hamlet on a bend in the Seine, when he was living in Vétheuil on the opposite side of the river.

The picture is dated 1881, but it may have been painted during the winter of 1879-1880, which was unusually cold. The Seine froze over and Monet was captivated by the way the landscape was transformed by snow and ice, braving the freezing temperatures to set up his easel out of doors. The great bank of snow in the foreground is conveyed with broad sweeps of the brush, the whites overlain with blues. The cold tones suggest that this side of the river is in shadow, unlike the opposite side, where the pink tones suggest the warmth of pale sunlight.

P.S. Monet's fellow painter, Gustave Caillebotte, also depicted snowy 19th-century Paris.  <3  So poetic ...

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