THE JAPANESE FOOTBRIDGE

In 1899, Monet painted twelve works from a single vantage point, focusing on the arching blue-green and microcosm of his water garden. Monet designed and built the landscape that appears in the painting from the bridge to the pond and its shape, to the water lilies and other plantings.

The impenetrable green enclosure harkens back to the hortus conclusus (closed garden) of medieval images, while also evoking a dreamlike contemplative zone consonant with symbolistic literature Gustave Geffroy described this effect as "this minuscule pool where some mysterious corollas blossom...a calm pool, immobile, rigid, and deep like a mirrow, upon which white water lilies blossom forth, a pool surrounded by soft and hanging greenery which reflects itself in it."