Lilacs, Gray Weather

Lilacs, Gray Weather is the overcast twin of Claude Monet's Lilac in the Sun. Both canvases show the same flowering lilac bush in the garden of his rented house at Argenteuil, with figures resting in its shade, painted around 1872–73. In this one the sky is white and even and the light is soft and shadowless, so the lilac's mauve blossoms and the green lawn sit in quiet, closely matched tones. It is in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

What you're looking at

A great lilac bush in bloom arches across most of the canvas, from the left edge to the center, its blossom a pale pinkish lilac against dark green leaves. To the right, more shrubs, also in flower, continue the wall of foliage, and a strip of white sky shows above them. The bush's twisted, pale trunks lean out at the left.

Under the arch there is a hollow of shade. Inside it, three figures rest on the grass. At the center a woman in a light dress and a small hat sits upright, catching what little light there is. To her left another figure sits or reclines in darker clothes, and at the right a third, possibly a man, leans in the shadow. None has a face we can read. In front of them a broad stretch of lawn, a muted green, runs to the bottom edge, with a clump of broad-leaved plants at lower left. Without sun there are no sharp shadows and no flecks of light, and the whole picture has a hushed, slightly damp quality.

In the lower left corner, a clump of broad leaves is one of the few places where Monet draws a shape clearly. It gives the eye somewhere to rest before entering the softer shade under the bush.

A pair: sun and gray weather

Monet moved to Argenteuil, on the Seine northwest of Paris, at the end of 1871. The garden of his first house there became a favorite motif in 1872 and 1873, and he often set Camille and friends in it; see Springtime and Madame Monet and a Friend in the Garden. The figures here are not identified, though Camille is often suggested for the woman at center.

The companion canvas, Lilac in the Sun in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow, shows the bush in strong spring sun, with spots of light dancing on the resting figures. Comparing them, one sees Monet painting not the lilac itself but the weather around it: the same subject in two kinds of light. Twenty years later this idea became the basis of his series, from the Haystacks onward. For the Argenteuil years, see Monet at Argenteuil.

How it was painted

The canvas is a standard 50 by 65 centimeters, painted outdoors. Under gray light Monet narrows his range of values. The blossoms are laid in small, soft dabs of lilac and pink-white, the leaves in dull greens, and the shadow under the bush in deep green and blue rather than black. The figures are painted with the same small touches as the foliage, so they merge into it. The lawn is brushed more broadly in horizontal strokes. The effect is less dazzling than the sunny version but more unified: everything sits in the same soft, cool atmosphere.

Ownership and where to see it

The painting belonged to Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, the painter, collector and historian, who gave his collection to the French state in 1906. Shown first at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and later the Louvre, it is now in the Musée d'Orsay, which holds one of the largest groups of Monet paintings in the world; see Monet at the Musée d'Orsay. Nearby in the collection are other Argenteuil garden pictures such as The Luncheon.