Water Lilies 1917

These Water Lilies, by Claude Monet, are made with oil paint and a whole lotta looking. I like to imagine Monet in his garden, painting en plein air, trying to capture light and water. The blues and purples melt into the yellows and greens. There's a real sense of atmosphere, the way the colors vibrate next to each other. Those thick strokes of paint suggest the texture of the water, the reflections, and the lily pads floating on the surface. He wasn’t just painting what he saw, but how he saw it, the feeling of being in that space. It makes me think about other artists who are trying to capture a fleeting moment, a mood, an experience. The physicality of the medium—the way paint can be built up and layered, scraped away, and reworked. That constant conversation—artists responding to and building upon one another's ideas across time, inspiring each other's creativity.