Autumn Effect at Argenteuil

Autumn Effect at Argenteuil (Effet d'automne à Argenteuil) is one of the most colorful pictures Claude Monet painted in his years at Argenteuil, the river town northwest of Paris. Dated 1873, it shows a channel of the Seine between two masses of orange autumn foliage, with the town catching the light in the distance. It is in the Courtauld Gallery in London, part of the collection given by Samuel Courtauld in 1932.

What you are looking at

The composition is a kind of open gateway. On the left a huge bank of trees in full autumn color, orange, copper, rust and red, fills almost half the canvas from top to bottom, and its reflection pours down into the water below in the same hot colors. On the right a smaller, taller group of trees, also orange and gold, rises against the sky, with its own reflection beneath.

Between them the river runs straight back toward the town. The water is pale blue and white, broken into short horizontal strokes that glitter like light on ripples. In the distance, across the water, the white and cream houses of Argenteuil line the bank in a thin strip, with a church spire and a tall, slender chimney rising above them, all dissolved in a warm, hazy light. The sky is a bright blue scattered with small white clouds, painted in thick, loose touches. There are no figures and no boats. The signature is at lower right.

The symmetry is deliberate but not rigid. The left bank of trees is heavier and closer, the right group lighter and taller, so the river opening is pushed slightly off center and the eye is drawn toward the town at an angle. The reflections almost double the mass of color, and in the lower half of the picture it can be hard to tell where the trees end and the water begins. That ambiguity between solid and reflected forms is something Monet would pursue for the rest of his life, all the way to the water lilies at Giverny.

Where and when it was painted

Monet moved to Argenteuil at the end of 1871, after his return from London and Holland, and lived there until 1878. These were the years in which his style and the Impressionist group took shape, and the river, the boats, the bridges and his own garden gave him dozens of motifs. This view looks along the Petit Bras, the narrow arm of the Seine between the town and an island, a spot he had painted the year before in The Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil. The town and its pictures are gathered on our Argenteuil hub.

How it was painted

This is a painting about color, and it is unusually bold even for Monet in 1873. He set the two warmest masses, the orange trees, against the coolest, the blue water and sky, so that each makes the other more intense. The foliage is painted in thick, dabbed strokes of orange, red and yellow over darker brown, without any attempt to describe single leaves. The reflections repeat the same strokes but break them up horizontally, so the water reads as moving. The distant town is kept pale and simple to push it far back. The picture was probably painted largely outdoors and quickly, to catch a particular autumn light before the leaves fell.

Argenteuil in four seasons

Monet painted Argenteuil in every season. Set this canvas beside his summer river views, such as The Seine at Argenteuil, or his snow scenes, such as Snow at Argenteuil, and you can see how he used the same few places to explore completely different color harmonies. In the same year he painted the town's railway bridge in Railroad Bridge, Argenteuil and his own house in The Artist's House at Argenteuil.

Where to see it

The painting is in the Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House in London (P.1932.SC.274), part of the Samuel Courtauld collection, which also includes Monet's Antibes and Vase of Flowers. For other collections, see where to see Monet's paintings.