that would become one of the most visited in France; he also developed a site that would consume the subject matter of his paintings for the next two decades. (Tucker, 177)Monet began his series of Water Lily series in the late 1890's. His first major group of garden pictures followed the method of the series, taking a single subject and studying it intensively. Between 1904 and 1908 he created over 150 paintings of the lily pond in the Japanese garden. Each year he began a new group with a different viewpoint. He said that he wished these 'water landscapes' to be 'works of no weather and no season'. (Tucker, 177)Carla Rachman, one of the critics of Monet's Water Lily series, takes an artistic point of view on these works. Her belief is that Monet was trying to portray different artistic skills in the paintings through point of view, depth, and color. (287) "The process of universalization in Monet's paintings could not go much farther; all that is left in the last generation of Giverny paintings is water, plants, earth and sky." (Rachman, 287) As the subjects become more abbreviated and the canvases grow in size, the viewer's attention is diverted from the subject to the surface of the picture. Rachman believes Monet was essentially depicting a surface without depth. (287) "He was looking both at and into the pool, simultaneously aware of the transparent and weedy depths and the deceptively bright reflections bobbing above them." (Rachman, 287) "Many of the most challenging pictures in this series appear to depict evening effects." (Rachman, 289) This is suggested by the fading light in the scenes and the way that Monet muddies his palette. Seductive pinks and greens all of the sudden become moodier mauves and murkier olives, mediation and seriousness replacing charm and delight. (Rachman, 289) Rachman believes that "water landscapes" is a good name for these paradoxical paintings, which could also be entitled "water skyscape...
