On a summer hillside, Monet's wife Camille holds a green parasol and looks back at the painter, while their son Jean stands a little way off. The wind stirs her veil and skirts, and clouds race across the sky. The painting feels like a snapshot taken in the sunshine.
Key facts
- Artist
- Claude Monet1840–1926 · French
- Date
- 1875
- Period
- Impressionism1860–1890
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 100 × 81 cm
- Location
- National Gallery of Art Washington, D.C., United States
Actual size
Compared with an adult 170 cm tall
Palette
#A7AFB2#646846#667580#3F4935#8D908CBackground
From 1871 to 1878 the Monet family lived at Argenteuil, northwest of Paris. It was a relatively settled time, and Monet painted many scenes of his family at leisure in gardens and fields.
Originally titled The Walk, Madame Monet and Her Son, it was shown at the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876. Jean was about eight.
Camille died in 1879, aged only thirty-two. In 1886 Monet painted two similar pictures of a woman with a parasol, using his stepdaughter Suzanne as model, but with the faces left indistinct; they are now in the Musée d'Orsay.
Technique & composition
The picture was probably painted outdoors in a single session. Monet used quick, fluid strokes for and wind-blown grass, blending colours wet-into-wet with improvisational energy.
We look up at Camille from a low viewpoint, so that she is silhouetted against the sky, tall and weightless. is not shaded with grey but with blues, greens, violets and yellows reflecting the sky and grass, an important Impressionist discovery about coloured shadows.
Details
Symbolism
A fleeting moment
seems to have just turned; her veil flutters and her expression is hard to read. This is not a formal portrait but a moment of family life, intimate and tender.
Light and wind
The true subjects may be light and wind: the shadow cast by , the billowing skirt and swaying grass all evoke a summer breeze and sunshine.
Stories
- Did you know?
, later became a chemist and married his stepsister Blanche Hoschedé.
- Did you know?
The painting was given to the National Gallery of Art in Washington by the collectors Paul and Bunny Mellon in 1983.
Legacy
Woman with a Parasol is a classic of Impressionist outdoor figure painting, showing how light and colour can capture a moment of life. Its composition and mood have influenced countless painters and photographers, and it remains one of Monet's most beloved works.
