Snow Scene at Argenteuil

Snow Scene at Argenteuil is the largest of the snow pictures Claude Monet painted in and around Argenteuil during the hard winter of 1874–75. It looks down the boulevard Saint-Denis, the street where he had just moved, under a fresh fall of snow, with a few dark figures walking toward a church spire. Bequeathed by Simon Sainsbury in 2006, it hangs in the National Gallery in London.

What you're looking at

The road runs straight away from us through the middle of the canvas and almost all of it is snow. In the foreground the snow is lumpy and churned. Monet paints it thickly, in creamy whites with violet and blue shadows, and lets two brown-red wheel ruts curve through it toward the distance. On the left, a rough fence and a hedge laden with snow run beside the road, the trees above them frosted pink and white. On the right, low walls and a snowy garden lead to a group of tall, bare trees whose branches are picked out in fine strokes of gray, lilac and rust.

In the middle distance a pair of figures in blue walk away down the road, and a third stands near a gate, partly hidden. Further on, a cluster of small dark shapes marks more people at a crossroads. Beyond them the street dissolves into haze. At the right, half lost in it, rise the rooftops of houses and a pointed spire. The sky is a low, even white with patches of pale blue, the kind of sky that has just stopped snowing.

Winter at Argenteuil

Monet had lived at Argenteuil, on the Seine northwest of Paris, since late 1871. In 1874 the family moved to a newly built house on the boulevard Saint-Denis, near the railway station. That winter brought heavy snow, and Monet painted at least eighteen snow scenes of the town, most from spots within a short walk of his door. This one looks along the boulevard toward its junction with the rue de la Voie-des-Bans; the station was behind him as he worked.

Other canvases from the same weeks include Snow at Argenteuil in Boston, Boulevard Saint-Denis, Argenteuil, in Winter and The Boulevard de Pontoise in Argenteuil under Snow, plus the locomotive picture Train in the Snow. The town and its river are covered on Monet at Argenteuil.

How it was painted

At about 71 by 91 centimeters, this is a big canvas for a snow scene, and Monet handles it differently from the smaller pictures of the same winter. Rather than describing each fence post and figure, he covers large areas in closely related blues, grays and whites. Small strokes of green, yellow, red and deep blue are scattered across these areas to keep them from going flat and to tie the picture together. The paint is heaviest on the road, where thick impasto gives the feel of trampled, uneven snow. The trees at right are drawn with the tip of the brush, wet into wet.

Snow let Monet study color in shadow. Nothing here is pure white: the sunless snow takes on violet and blue, while the patches that catch light from the sky turn faintly pink and cream. This interest in colored shadows became one of the defining habits of Impressionist painting.

Manet's verdict and later owners

The critic Théodore Duret bought the picture from Monet in December 1879. Duret later recalled that Édouard Manet, wanting to paint a snow scene, looked at this canvas, declared it perfect and said he could not do better, and gave up the idea. From Duret it passed to the Paris dealers Boussod, Valadon et Cie in 1892 and then to Harris Whittemore of Naugatuck, Connecticut. Simon Sainsbury bought it in the early 1970s and left it to the National Gallery, where it arrived as part of his 2006 bequest.

Where to see it

The painting is in the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, one of a strong group of Monet works there that includes The Beach at Trouville and The Thames below Westminster. For other collections, see where to see Monet's paintings.