Blue Water-Lillies by Claude Monet 1916, oil on canvas. At the Museum D'Orsay, Paris, France. Image taken on location by Minerva Bloom. With permission to reproduce this image from D'Orsay Museum: Denise Faife Documentation du musée d'Orsay. "Nymphaea" is the botanical name for a water lily. Monet grew white water lillies in the water garden he had installed in his property at Giverny in 1893. From the 1910s until he died in 1926, the garden and its pond in particular, became the artist's sole source of inspiration. He said: "I have come back to things that are impossible to do: water with weeds waving in the depths. Apart from painting and gardening, I am good for nothing. My greatest masterpiece is my garden." Eliminating the horizon and the sky, Monet focused on a small area of the pond, seen as a piece of nature, almost a close-up. No details stand out and the overall impression is one of a shapeless surface. The square format reinforces the neutrality of the composition. The lack of a frame of reference gives the fragment an infinite, limitless feeling. Poster design by Minerva Bloom.