Path Through the Irises by Monet in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 2011

Title: The Path through the Irises

Artist: Claude Monet (French, Paris 1840–1926 Giverny)

Date: 1914–17

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 78 7/8 x 70 7/8 in. (200.3 x 180 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: The Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Collection, Gift of Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg, 2001, Bequest of Walter H. Annenberg, 2002

Object Number: 2001.202.6

Irises, among Monet's favorite flowers, lined the pathways leading up to the house and Japanese bridge on the artist's property at Giverny. This bird's-eye view of a garden path belongs to a series of monumental works painted during the First World War that capture the vital essence of these flowers with intensity and breadth of vision. Late in life, as his eyesight faltered, he dispensed with subtlety and "took in the motif in large masses," waiting "until the idea took shape, until the arrangement and composition inscribed themselves on the brain."

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/438007