Poplars near Giverny, Overcast Weather

Peupliers près de Giverny, temps couvert (Poplars near Giverny, Overcast Weather) is a painting from Claude Monet's 1891 series of poplars on the river Epte, catalogued by Wildenstein as no. 1291. The upright canvas measures 92 by 73 centimeters. It belongs to the MOA Museum of Art in Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan.

What you're looking at

This is the series under a gray sky. A row of tall poplars runs across the canvas from left to right, rising toward the upper right, where their crowns are cut off by the top edge. The trunks are long and thin, painted in olive, ochre and gray, with dark clumps of leaves climbing them in blue-green and slate. The crowns are dense masses of dark green, olive and blue, with lighter gray-green touches where the dull light catches them.

The sky behind is the main source of light: an overcast gray-cream, streaked with pale yellow and blue-gray clouds, brushed in loose horizontal strokes. At the upper left, a patch of warmer ochre suggests the sun behind cloud. Through the gaps between the trunks, the sky shows as pale vertical slots.

Lower down, behind the main row, a band of rounded bushes and smaller trees in dark green and blue-black stretches across the canvas. At the bottom, a strip of deep green grass and the dark water of the Epte close the picture, with a few pale reflections of the sky in the water. The whole palette is muted and cool: greens, grays and blues, with almost no red or yellow.

The Poplars series

Monet painted the line of poplars on the Epte near Limetz in 1891 from his boat. When the commune sold the trees for timber, he paid to keep them standing until he had finished. He followed them through the summer and autumn, in sun, wind, cloud and dusk. This canvas records a gray, overcast day before the leaves had turned; a related canvas, Poplars on the Banks of the Epte, Overcast Weather, shows another view under similar skies.

How it was painted

The trunks are drawn in long vertical strokes, the foliage in thick, clotted touches, the sky in broad, thin strokes over a light ground. With the colors held so close in value, Monet relies on the pattern of trunks and gaps for the structure of the picture. The effect is somber and heavy, the opposite of the bright autumn canvases.

How this version differs

Set beside Row of Poplars in Autumn, which shows a similar close row in gold and orange against gray, this canvas keeps the summer greens and darkens them under cloud. It is a long way from the sunny Three Poplars, Autumn Effect or the wind-tossed Wind Effect, Series of The Poplars at the Orsay. See the whole series in the Poplars series and the countryside in Monet's Giverny.

Where to see it

The MOA Museum of Art in Atami, on a hillside overlooking Sagami Bay, was founded by the Mokichi Okada Association and is best known for its Japanese and East Asian art, including several National Treasures. It also holds a group of Western paintings, including this Monet. Japan has many Monet paintings in public collections; for others, see where to see Monet's paintings.