Monet : peindre le temps

Exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie, 30 September 2026 – 25 January 2027

From the 1870s onwards, Claude Monet (1840–1926) was regarded as the quintessential Impressionist artist, even though he took part in only five of the group’s exhibitions. His work soon came to be identified with ‘new painting’, so fully did it embody its characteristics (most often executed en plein air, with rapid brushstrokes and clear harmonies capturing the impression of a single moment), before evolving into one of its most distinctive and remarkable extensions. In the 1890s, series such as the ‘Cathedrals’, ‘Haystacks’ and ‘Poplars’ revealed an approach akin to the dissection of time, culminating in the final testament of the ‘Water Lilies’.

This exhibition catalogue, marking the end of the Monet year, offers a fresh examination of the artist’s work through the novel lens of his relationship with time, adopting a distanced perspective that draws on various fields of research within the humanities. It presents a selection of nearly forty paintings by Monet, drawn mainly from the collections of the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée Marmottan Monet, but also from French and international public and private collections.