Claude Monet, French, 1840-1926 – Morning at Antibes Philadelphia Museum of Art

Description of Claude Monet’s painting Antibes in the Morning

This is a painting by the famous impressionist painter and landscape painter Claude Monet. He is often called the founder of Impressionism. The paintings are remarkable for the amazing ease of brushstrokes, the airiness, the richness of the color scheme.

Antibes is a surprisingly picturesque resort town in Italy, located on the headland of the Bay of Angels, between Nice and Cannes. The picture immediately catches your eye with its richness, the play of colors and tones. The foreground of the painting depicts green trees on a small rock, with a wonderfully airy view of Antibes itself.

The light, gentle tones of the foliage, the rippling turquoise sea waves, the play of sunlight - all this is simply breathtaking. If you look closely at the canvas, you can see that the painting has no outlines at all. The air environment is masterfully conveyed by a method specific to the artist - he applies strokes one after another, thus creating smooth, barely perceptible color and tonal transitions.

You can see how the outline of the soft pink mountains barely visible, smoothly passes into the blue of the clear sky, merges with it. The leaves of the trees dissolving in this blueness, the sky shining through the leaves, all this gives the picture transparency and atmosphere, creating the illusion as if the leaves are moving in the sea wind and the sun’s rays are in endless play, its glare gliding over the ground and water, breaking through the transparent leaves.

The gentle southern sun is everywhere - in the yellowing walls of the city, in the haze of the mountains, and in the sea water. This makes all the tones in the painting, even the cold ones (blue, turquoise, green) seem so warm, and so authentically convey the warm air of a southern Italian place!