Bordighera
1884
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
65 × 80.8 cm (25 5/8 × 31 13/16 in.); Framed: 80.4 × 96.6 × 8.3 cm (31 5/8 × 38 × 3 1/4 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
81537
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Early in 1884 Claude Monet traveled to Bordighera, a town on the Italian Riviera near the border between Italy and France, for a working visit of three weeks that turned into nearly three months. In a letter to sculptor Auguste Rodin describing his efforts to capture the brilliant Mediterranean light, Monet declared that he was “fencing, wrestling, with the sun.” In other letters he complained of the impossibility of finding a suitable subject amid the region’s abundant vegetation. In this sun-d...
About the Artist
Claude Monet · 1840–1926
Claude Monet, born Oscar-Claude Monet on November 14, 1840, in Paris and raised in Le Havre, Normandy, began his artistic journey as a successful teenage caricaturist. His formal training started at the Le Havre secondary school of the arts in 1851, where he received his first drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard. Around 1858, he met Eugène Boudin, who became his pivotal mentor, introducin...