The ''Garden at Sainte-Adresse'' is a painting by the French impressionist painter

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. Durin ...

. (Oil on canvas, ). The painting was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art after an auction sale at Christie's in December 1967, under the French title ''La terrasse à Sainte-Adresse''. The painting was exhibited at the 4th Impressionist exhibition, Paris, April 10–May 11, 1879, as no. 157 under the title ''Jardin à Sainte-Adresse''.

History

Monet spent the summer of 1867 at the resort town of

Sainte-Adresse Sainte-Adresse () is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the region of Normandy, France. Geography A coastal suburb situated some northwest of Le Havre city centre, at the junction of the D147 and the D940. The English Channel forms t ...

on the

English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...

, near

Le Havre Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very ...

(France). It was there, in a garden with a view of

Honfleur Honfleur () is a commune in the Calvados department in northwestern France. It is located on the southern bank of the estuary of the Seine across from le Havre and very close to the exit of the Pont de Normandie. The people that inhabit Honf ...

on the horizon, that he painted this picture, which combines smooth, traditionally rendered areas with sparkling passages of rapid, separate brushwork, and spots of pure colour. The models were probably Monet's father, Adolphe, in the foreground, Monet's cousin's wife Jeanne-Marguerite Lecadre at the fence; Adolphe, her father; and perhaps, Sophie, her sister, the woman seated with her back to the viewer. Although the scene projects affluent domesticity, it is by no means a family portrait. Monet's relations with his father were tense that summer, owing to family disapproval of the young artist's liaison with his companion, Camille Doncieux, his wife-to-be. Sazai hall - 500 Rakan temples

Monet called this work in his correspondence "the Chinese painting in which there are flags". His friend Pierre-Auguste Renoir referred to it as "the Japanese painting". In the 1860s, the composition's flat horizontal bands of colour would have reminded the sophisticated of Japanese colour

wood-block print Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. Each page or image is crea ...

s, which were avidly collected by Monet,

Manet A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points ...

, Renoir, Whistler, and others in their circle. The print by the Japanese artist Hokusai that may have inspired this picture, ''Turban-shell Hall of the Five-Hundred-Rakan Temple'' (1830), remains today at Monet's house-museum at

Giverny Giverny () is a commune in the northern French department of Eure.Commune de Giverny (27285) ...

. The elevated vantage point and relatively even sizes of the horizontal areas emphasize the two-dimensionality of the painting. The three horizontal zones of the composition seem to rise parallel to the picture plane instead of receding into space. The subtle tension resulting from the combination of illusionism and the two-dimensionality of the surface remained an important characteristic of Monet's style. The painting is now in the New York

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

. It was bought in 1967, with special contributions given or bequeathed by friends of the Museum.

History

See also