克劳德-莫奈，布面油画，1914-17年，澳大利亚国家美术馆藏，201.6x181cm
The years from the summer of 1914 until Monet's death in 1926 comprise a period of extraordinary activity in the artist's career. Although he is thought to have destroyed several canvases in frustration—by boot, knife, or fire—nonetheless 200 generally large paintings remain from this period. The majority of these relate to the great cycle of water lily paintings.
从1914年夏天到1926年莫奈去世的这几年是莫奈艺术生涯中一段非常活跃的时期。尽管人们认为他在精神挫败中用靴子、刀或火毁掉了好几幅油画，但这一时期他仍有200幅大型油画保留了下来。其中大部分与巨幅的睡莲环形画作有关。
The Waterlilies we present today is large. These paintings were worked in the open air; Monet managed to set them up with the help of his gardeners. A photograph taken in the summer of 1915 shows Monet beside the pond, perched on a high stool, and shaded by an enormous umbrella, working on one of these large studies.
我们今天展示的《睡莲》尺幅很大。这些画是在户外中创作的；莫奈在园丁的帮助下设法把它们安置好。在一张拍摄于1915年夏天的照片中，莫奈坐在池塘边的高脚凳上，在一把大伞的遮荫下，正在绘制其中一项大型画作。
The fresh, spontaneous brushstrokes of today's painting, and its particularity of observation, including some unusual, almost obtrusive compositional features, suggest that it was at least begun in front of the motif. Monet started the painting by blocking in the curve of the bank at his feet in a vertical plane of blue paint that might initially have been suggested by the shadow in the water of the Japanese bridge or the pond bank but was subsequently overpainted along the inner curved edge with chopped brushstrokes of green and yellow that clearly indicate the grassy verge of the bank itself. This is an unusually strong and specific foreground element in Monet's pond-side studies. More often it is the dark reflection of overhanging trees or the fringes of irises or agapanthus growing on the bank that frame the expanse of the pond without interrupting the continuous water surface.
今天这幅绘画的清新、自然的笔触，以及特殊的观察角度，包括一些不寻常的、几乎突兀的构图特征，表明它至少是在草图之前就开始构思了。莫奈开始作画时，先在他脚下的堤岸曲线上画了一个蓝色的垂直平面，可能最初是暗示了日本桥或池塘堤岸在水中的影子，但随后沿着内弯曲的边缘，用绿色和黄色笔触进行了重画，清楚地表明了河岸本身是草地的边缘。在莫奈的池塘研究中，这是一个异常强烈和特殊的前景元素。更多的情况是，悬在水面上的树木的阴影或岸边鸢尾或八角莲的边缘，在连续水面的映衬下，限制了池塘的扩张。
We present today's painting thanks to the National Gallery of Australia. : )
感谢澳大利亚国家美术馆与我们分享今天的画作。:)
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