Ships Riding on the Seine at Rouen

Claude Monet

National Gallery of Art

We look across the water at two sailing ships with cream-white sails and dark rigging floating in a shimmering, ice-blue river against a distant shore lined with trees, hills, and buildings in this nearly square landscape painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and the ships’ masts and sails are silhouetted against a topaz-blue sky with wispy white clouds. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes throughout so many of the details are indistinct. One boat floats near the left edge of the painting and the second is situated a little father back, to our right of center. Both have rust-orange anchors painted near the pointed bows, which face us. Tall, narrow, asparagus-green trees line the far riverbank between the boats. Tall spires and towers of buildings rise in a cluster to our left near that edge of the canvas, and boats cluster near the distant shore to our right. Oatmeal-brown hills rise beyond the trees and town. The trees and boats are reflected in the water, which is painted with horizontal dashes and squiggles. The artist signed the painting in the lower left, “Claude Monet.”