Weeping Willow

1918–19

Oil on canvas, 99.7 × 120 cm. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

The twisting trunk and hanging branches of a willow beside Monet's water garden, in shifting greens, yellows and blues. It is one of ten willow pictures Monet completed by 1919.

The museum reads the curling strokes and shadowy color as grief for the war years. Monet's late brushwork moves from recording light, the Impressionist aim, toward expressing feeling.
The willows are among the few easel-size pictures Monet made after 1914.
The war emptied Giverny of most of his family and staff, but Monet stayed on.
He built the picture in layers, and in the foliage he scraped paint away.
Kojiro Matsukata owned it by 1924; the Kimbell bought it in 1996.

This willow stood on the bank of the lily pond. Its trunk and reflection reappear in the huge water-lily panels that occupied Monet until his death in 1926.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain