NARRATOR: When Monet made this painting in 1899, he was 59 years old. His early struggles as an Impressionist painter were behind him, and he had bought a property in the rural village of Giverny, north of Paris. There, he transformed a hayfield into the breathtaking garden depicted here. REBECCA RABINOW: A few years before he painted this work, Monet received permission to divert part of the local river in order to make a pond in which to start a water garden. Soon thereafter he built a Japanese style wooden bridge, to which he later added on a wisteria-covered trellis. Monet painted his garden over and over again. This picture, which is unusual in its vertical format, shows the Japanese bridge arching from one side of the composition to the other. You see the trees and the foliage above it, but you also see the reflection on the water surface. It's actually very difficult to paint water, and what Monet has tried to do is show the water lilies resting on the surface of the pond, as well as the reflections of the trees and then also get a sense of the shadow of the bridge which you can see at the very bottom of this painting. NARRATOR: To study Monet's development as an artist, I’d like to invite you to walk around the galleries and to look at the different ways in which he painted water—and notice how his images become increasingly abstract over time.