Villas in Bordighera
Claude MONET
(French, 1840-1926)
Villas in Bordighera
Date1884
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionsoverall: 29 x 36 3/8 in. (73.7 x 92.4 cm)
frame: 36 x 44 x 3 1/2 in. (91.4 x 111.8 x 8.9 cm)
ClassificationPAINTINGS
Credit LineSBMA, Bequest of Katharine Dexter McCormick in memory of her husband, Stanley McCormick
Object number1968.20.5
Subject(s)
- garden
- mountain
- plants
- buildings
- architecture
Collection
- 19th century French
- European
Sub-Collection(s)
- Impressionism
- French
On View
Not on viewLabel TextThis ravishing evocation of the light, heat, trees and buildings found on the Italian Riviera is often mistaken for Santa Barbara. Alas Claude Monet never visited here but did stay in Bordighera for three months in 1884, and what he captured is the scientifically designated Mediterranean climate shared by both these parts of the world. Beginning in 1860s Paris, Monet revolutionized the art of painting, relying on strokes of pure color to register the everyday world. Such an approach ran counter to the smooth hyperrealism and exalted subject matter of the era’s official French painting. Once seen as radical, Monet’s now-iconic Impressionist vision finds even more advanced expression in the two London paintings nearby.
