Grainstack, Snow Effect, Morning 1891

In October 1890, Claude Monet (1840-1926) wrote in aletter to his future biographer Gustave Geffroy: "I am hard at it, grinding away at a series of different effects, but at this time of the year the sun sets so quickly I cannot keep up with it..." He was describing his Haystack ("Grainstack") series of paintings, and went on to say that what he was after was what he called "instantaneity" —the "enveloppe" of light that unifies a scene for an instant, before changing to create a new momentary effect. Though the paintings were begun out of doors, they were "harmonized" in the studio, and Monet intended them to be viewed together. Compare this image to Haystack at Sunset, Frosty Weather (opposite. The powerful compositions are ay inar, wit a he powerful simplity. But in ney similar, with an almost abstract simplicity. But in Frosty Weather the stack and the entire scene glow hot in the fiery sunset, while in this painting the dark shape of the haystack is enveloped in the chilly light of a late winter afternoon, and set against the ice blue of the snow-covered field and the cool blue of the landscape "band" behind it. The winter sun is low in the sky, and lights the stack from behind, casting a long elliptical shadow across the canvas. When fifteen Haystack paintings were exhibited together in 1891, the show was a triumph. Critics not only saw Monet's unique rendering of light effects, but also responded to the French rural subject matter. The artist may also have been concerned with the haystacks themselves as symbols of the fertility and prosperity of the French agricultural landscape.