Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer)

About this artwork

The monumental stacks that Claude Monet depicted in his series Stacks of Wheat rose fifteen to twenty feet and stood just outside the artist’s farmhouse at Giverny. Through 1890 and 1891, he worked on this series both in the field, painting simultaneously at several easels, and in the studio, refining pictorial harmonies. In May 1891, Monet hung fifteen of these canvases next to each other in one small room in the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris. An unprecedented critical and financial success, the...

Art Historical Context

Claude Monet’s *Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer)*, painted in 1890–91, captures the quiet beauty of rural France through the eyes of the leading Impressionist master. Working in oil on canvas, Monet used loose, vibrant brushstrokes to record how late-summer light bathes the golden stacks and surrounding fields. The modest dimensions—roughly 60 by 100 centimeters—invite viewers to experience the scene at an intimate scale, as if standing in the landscape itself. This work belongs to Monet’s celebrated Haystacks series, in which he returned repeatedly to the same subject at different hours and seasons. By focusing on the effects of changing light and atmosphere rather than narrative detail, Monet helped redefine modern painting. The warm palette and soft edges convey the gentle transition from summer to autumn, reminding us how fleeting natural conditions shape our perception of the world. Today at the Art Institute of Chicago, the painting offers visitors a timeless meditation on time, light, and the rhythms of the countryside. Its presence in the museum’s European collection underscores Monet’s enduring influence on generations of artists who sought to capture the fleeting moment on canvas.

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...