Whose Paintings Captured Water Lilies?

Claude Monet (1840-1926) purchased a property in Giverny, about 75 km from Paris, in 1890 and spent decades designing an elaborate water garden with a Japanese-style bridge and water lily pond. The pond became his obsessive artistic subject for the last three decades of his life. He painted about 250 "Nympheas" canvases, ranging from small studies to enormous murals. His final masterwork, the Grandes Decorations at the Musee de l'Orangerie in Paris, consists of eight immense panoramic panels (total length about 91 metres) installed in two oval rooms as Monet specified — an immersive 360-degree environment of water, light, and reflection that presaged abstract expressionism. Monet painted through failing eyesight from cataracts, which may have shifted his colour perception toward warmer tones. After cataract surgery in 1923, he reportedly repainted some works, distressed by the colour shifts his impaired vision had caused.