water lily essay

“Water Lilies” by Claude Monet Analysis Report

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The Range of Colour

Category and attributes of colour, type of colour contrast, gestalt theories of perception, perceptual effects.

Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies” can be acclaimed as one of outstanding works by this ingenuous painter. The painting uses a wide range of bright, saturated and complementary colours. This use of colour harmony can be described as one of the most notorious and indicative works by impressionists.

Speaking about the range of colour which can be seen in this painting, it should be said that it is rather varied and features basic colours such as blue as the main colour for the picture used as background, red, and yellow in the upper right along with numerous colour tinctures including white, green, brown and black.

There exist four categories of colour including conventional colour, substance colour, spectral profile colour and profile colour (Green-Armytage, 2006). Analysing this painting, it should be stated that Monet resorts to the use of conventional colours. For example, blue is conventional for water, red for flowers and so on. Speaking about substance colour in this painting, the three main notions should be addressed including the painting’s hue, saturation and tone. In this painting Monet resorts to the use of natural hues, strong saturation and bright tones.

Chevreul (1839) was adherent to the idea that colour harmony has a strong tendency to be connected to colour contrast and colour compatibility. His theories also affected Monet’s way of thinking. Thus, Monet applies highly compliment colour in this painting. According to Chevreul’s theory, the painting may be characterised as using complement colours; however the theories by the other specialists suggest different points of view on this matter. Still, the majority of specialists state that such colours as blue and yellow which can be seen in this painting are to be considered as contrasting (Itten 1961, 1963).

According to Gestalt theory, the main perception factors which are the most important for visual perception are colour, line, contour, contrast, tone and texture. Each individual’s visual perception is affected by apprehension of individual stimuli which are also known as perceptual factors along with individual’s imaginary. People have a tendency to think over any particular object until they will be able to identify it to something familiar within this particular object. Judging on this factor, the painting can be evaluated as having easily noticed objects as lilies and water along with the rest ones such as the sky reflecting in the water.

Perceptual effects are rather many. They often occur in the most diversified settings and bearings. People have a tendency to be affected mainly by colour and colour contrast. Depending on the context and the objectives of their work painters resort to the use of the most varied perceptual effects. In this painting Monet seems to have an objective to impress the audience by the beauty of the pond’s water in its combination with lilies. Thus, he applies strong colour contrast. In addition, sample colours may be affected by the other colours creating the colour system of the painting. The whole painting “Water Lilies” can be acclaimed as featuring highly complement and saturated colours which strengthens the impression it produces. The entire painting’s colour system appears very bright and thus, producing pleasant impression. Monet uses light colour for this picture which makes it appearing nearer to the viewer. In addition, the colours in this painting appear perceptually vibrate adding to its special liveliness and charm. Such vibrant colours as red, blue, yellow, violate, and pink were often used by impressionist to affect their audience. This painting can be described as one of the most vivid examples of such tendency by impressionists to whom Monet can be related as one of the most outstanding. Separated colours of every image when they are evaluated together by the viewer seem to produce new ones from a distance. This can be observed in the colours of the lilies which seem to appear rosier from distance when affected by blue.

The area of strong contrast which is created by hue or saturation attracts visual attention (Boynton, 1979). This painting can be described as a good example of attracting one’s attention on the above mentioned reason. In addition, strong contrast is accepted quickly and easily; this is what happens in the case of this painting. Whereas poor contrast may present a difficulty in experiencing the image by people especially elderly ones and those with poor eye-sight. This picture, on the contrary, presents a good example of strong contrast adding to its easy perception by different viewers.

In conclusion, Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies” can be described as featuring complementary colours, high level of saturation and vibrancy which makes it very appealing to the audience. In this painting Monet resorts to the use of natural hues and bright tones which adds to the picture’s colour harmony and the positive impression it produces. Such vibrant colours as red, blue, yellow, violate, and pink were often used by impressionist to affect their audience. This painting can be described as one of the most vivid examples of such tendency by impressionists.

• Boynton, R. M. (1979). Human color vision. New York: Holt, Reinhart & Winston.
• Chevreul, M. E. (1855). The principles of harmony and the contrast of colours: And their applications to the arts (Facsimile edition; Trans. C Martel). Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing.
• Green-Armytage, P. (2006). The value of knowledge for colour design. Color Research and Application , 31 (4), 253-269.
• Itten, J. (1961). The art of color (Revised edition, 1973). New York: John Wiley.
• Itten, J. (1963). Design and form: The basic course at the Bauhaus and later (Revised edition, 1975). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
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Bibliography

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What Monet’s Water Lilies Taught Me About Beauty’s Proximity to Violence

W hen I was a little girl, my mother had an umbrella that I wasn’t allowed to use. It was a stick umbrella, the expensive kind with a wooden handle, and the top panels were printed with a watery, vague image—green splotches, purple streaks, blue swirls. This was my first introduction to French Impressionist painter Claude Monet, through a museum-branded household object, and for a long time, that’s all I cared to know of the artist. As far as I was concerned, his work was for suburban mothers and other middle-brow shoppers. Even after I had been exposed to his paintings in high school during a school field trip to the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, I continued to associate the Impressionists with mass-produced souvenirs. I had started studying art history and theory somewhat seriously, and Monet was not for serious people. Compared to contemporary art, which was thrillingly opaque, and ancient art, which was fascinatingly distant, these pretty paintings were boring. I didn’t understand what was so revolutionary about abstraction, and I certainly had no idea that Monet’s soft blooms were a direct response to the unprecedented horror of World War I.

I can’t pretend I know exactly what Claude Monet was thinking as he stood at his outdoor easel in Giverny during the summer of 1914. Thousands of French soldiers had already died in the trenches of World War I, and conflict was coming ever closer to the artist. “I shall stay here regardless,” he wrote from his beloved country home, located just 30 miles from the battlefield, “and if those barbarians wish to kill me, I shall die among my canvases, in front of my life’s work.” It was against this backdrop that Monet created his most famous works: a series of horizonless canvases dappled with shadows, lit from above, strewn with blooming water lilies. Like so many before him, Monet honored the slaughtered with flowers. It’s a practice that spans cultures, from the marigolds of Día de los Muertos to the poppies of Remembrance Day. The association between beautiful, generative plants and destructive, uniquely human behavior has been so repeatedly solidified that at times, it can seem innate. Yet it’s something we chose to do—to tie the worst of ourselves to some of the best and brightest things in the natural world. Beauty and violence exist in tandem because we will it so.

When faced with encroaching chaos, in the seventh decade of his life, grieving the deaths of several family members and the slow degradation of his eyesight, Monet chose to look down into the waters of his pleasure pond and paint. He had created this body of water two decades before by diverting a stream into his patch of country marshland and importing exotic blossoms from abroad. His obsession with lotuses and lilies scandalized the locals (who feared the aquatic plants would take over the waterways) but the pond pleased the painter to no end. It was his refuge, the wide world writ small and manageable. “If William Blake saw the world in a grain of sand,” wrote art historian Ross King in Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Waterlilies , “Monet could glimpse, in the mirrored surface of his lily pond, the dazzling variety and abundance of nature.” Although the painter admitted to being “embarrassed” by his continued commitment to art during wartime, he felt there was a value in attempting to capture the beauty of his environment. Not only was the act of painting a defiance of the ravages of war, Monet also chose to donate his canvases to the nation—on the condition that the government find a suitable way to display them. The French rose to the occasion, designating an entire gallery in the Musee Orangerie to the painter’s vision.

I have yet to visit this faraway room but I have friends who have spent time there. Some say it was transcendent, while others say it was too busy, too touristy, too familiar. I still want to go, especially now that I know the context of their creation. The ugly truth is that I, like many people, value beauty more dearly when it is set against the backdrop of suffering. Pain validates prettiness, adding an illusion of depth to something that is, on a surface level, attractive enough already. Violence, unlike flowers, was something I’ve always understood to be important, compelling, and worthy of somber consideration. I’m an American and for us, violence is often depicted as a valid form of self-expression. Bloodshed can be edgy or envelope-pushing. According to our filmmakers, it can even be beautiful. “It’s just another color to work with,” Quentin Tarantino once famously said . “It doesn’t mean anything.”

Read more: Why We Love Violent Delights

Except, of course, that second part is not true. Violence in art means something just as bloodshed in life means something. Aesthetics matter, and aestheticizing violence is one way of spinning it into myth, elevating brutal actions to an almost spiritual level. Like beauty, violence can appear transcendent. It can shift one’s reality , alter one’s brain chemistry and even change one’s gene expression . There is a power to it, one that flowers sorely lack.

And yet, we’ve wound these things together, blood and roses. Flowers are a janus symbol, their pretty faces mean both life and death. Wilting flowers in a vase can serve as an artists’ memento mori while fresh flowers in a wreath signify the quickening of new life and the fruits of spring. Even without the war, Monet’s series of immersive, challenging, almost psychedelic canvases, dappled with sacred lotus flowers (a symbol of transcendence, beauty rising from the muck) should matter greatly. Their existence should be enough.

But I’m a rubbernecker; I stare at the crosses by the side of the road, decorated with plastic flowers, scenes from a recent death, and I wonder: Whose life ended on this stretch of highway? I see the fresh flowers in a cemetery and I can’t help but look at the dates. Who died, how young? The truth is that I’m seduced by what sickens me. Even now, I catch myself dismissing the calm, the good, the nice in favor of the poignant, the strange, the intense. Life is full of small, familiar pleasures, yet I still underrate them in favor of those big swoops of drama. I don’t like this about myself.

Lately, I’ve been trying to rewire my brain slightly—to think more like Monet. His wisdom was hard-won, late-in-life. But after living through a pandemic, I feel that I’ve gained some perspective. In the past few years, I’ve attended too many funerals. I’ve become wary of the scent of white lilies. I’ve also had to race to daycare to pick up my daughter after a violent threat was made, images of bloodshed roaring through my head. There was nothing transcendent about those mad minutes, nothing beautiful about the sour smell that emitted from my body for hours afterwards, nothing to be gleaned from the sheer intensity of emotion or the grasping desperation of fear. If there were flowers around that morning, I was unable to see them, much less appreciate their colors.

I could dwell in those places, for they have power and weight, not to mention a healthy population of prisoners. Instead, I’m trying to honor the small plants that come across my path, the fuchsia bursts of fringed polygala, the spotted yellow of a trout lily. I’m not much of a painter, but I can bestow my attention on the things that grow around and in front of me. Their meaning is no more or less than life itself.

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Claude Monet, Les Nymphéas (The Water Lilies)

Claude Monet,  Les Nymphéas (The Water Lilies),  suite of paintings on permanent exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. Room 1: Morning, oil on two canvas panels, 200 x 425 cm, c. 1918-26 Clouds, oil on three canvas panels, 200 x 1275 cm, c. 1918-26 Green Highlights , oil on two canvas panels, 200 x 850 cm, c. 1918-26 Sunset, oil on canvas, 200 x 600 cm, c. 1918-26 Room 2: Reflection of Trees , oil on two canvas panels, 200 x 850 cm, c. 1918-26 The Morning Light , the Willows , oil on three canvas panels, 200 x 1275 cm, c. 1918-26 The Morning Willows , oil on three canvas panels, 200 x 1275 cm, c. 1918-26 The Two Willows , oil on four canvas panels, 200 x 1700 cm, c. 1918-26

Smarthistory images for teaching and learning:

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More Smarthistory images…

Video transcript

[0:00] [music]

Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:04] We’re in the l’Orangerie in Paris, and we’re looking at one of Monet’s Water Lily rooms.

Dr. Beth Harris: [0:11] It’s in an oval shape, lit from above.

Dr. Zucker: [0:14] Through a scrim, which gives it a really lovely, soft light. There is this sense that these are contemplative works, which ties them in an interesting way to a kind of solemnity of the sort that you would expect in a religious context.

Dr. Harris: [0:25] Oh, no doubt. This is painted late in Monet’s life, after the death of his wife and after the death of his son, so I think there is a sense for him of his legacy.

Dr. Zucker: [0:36] He gave them to the French state, and the state in turn decided to build this pavilion for them.

Dr. Harris: [0:41] I keep thinking about Monet’s lifelong desire to capture the beauty of the optical world, from when he was in Paris, and then in Argenteuil, and thinking back to the “Boulevard des Capucines” and the light flooding down the boulevard, to the “Gare Saint-Lazare” and the light filtered through the steam of the trains, and then later in his life, in his garden with the water lilies.

Dr. Zucker: [1:06] He was interested not only in capturing and understanding, rendering those effects of light and the momentary, but actually in creating them.

[1:16] He devoted an enormous amount of his life to actually planting these gardens and maintaining them, and then translating them onto canvas and in a sense preserving that sense of the momentary.

Dr. Harris: [1:27] The thing that I keep thinking about as we look at these and the intensity of the color and the beauty of the color harmonies is that the paintings are more beautiful than reality.

[1:38] Let’s think about them for a second in the history of landscape painting. These are unprecedented in that way. First of all, their shape is these very long panels without a horizon line.

Dr. Zucker: [1:49] Right. We’re looking across the water, so that we see neither the ground that we stand on nor the horizon on the far side.

Dr. Harris: [1:56] Traditional landscape painting often provided a path for one’s eye to travel through a landscape. Here, we really can’t do that because we’re confronted with the surface of the water, the surface of the paintings themselves.

Dr. Zucker: [2:11] I do think that Monet is borrowing actually from the classical tradition of landscape painting. If you look on both sides of these canvases, you see the dark shadows of the weeping willows, and those function in a sense the way that trees often framed recessionary landscapes by Claude or by Poussin.

[2:28] Monet has placed us in a very particular place. Obviously we’re on the shore in some way, but we’re looking across the water so that we see neither the ground that we stand on nor the horizon on the far side.

[2:40] Now, Monet had just enlarged his ponds, but even then they’re quite small, and so he’s really unmoored us by not giving us ground to stand on. But he has given us a very particular angle at which we’re viewing the pads of the water lilies themselves, and that does place us in relationship to the surface of the water so we actually can locate ourselves.

[3:01] They also allow us to hop, skip, and jump from pad to pad and move back into space, and then this extraordinary volume of space below the pond and the incredible dome of space above where those towering clouds ride above us.

[3:17] This sense of the extent of the volume that’s portrayed, and yet [to have] done so on the two-dimensional surface of the pond, which is of course a reflection of the two-dimensional surface of the canvas, is a beautiful summation of this notion that Monet has worked towards for so long.

[3:35] How does one capture both the abstraction of modern art and yet also still make room for the volume that our eye knows?

Dr. Harris: [3:47] There’s something really sublime here. We have the infinity of that depth and there’s also a sense of the infinite in the sky and the clouds, and that speaks back to that religious sense. While he’s capturing the transitory, there’s a sense of permanence and transcendence at the same time.

Dr. Zucker: [4:07] I think that’s actually a perfect way to state it. Let’s take a really close look at the paint.

[4:14] The surface is incredibly rich and rough and built up. You can see this kind of dry brush that Monet has pulled the paint across. What seems to happen is the paint comes off on the ridges that are already there, making those even more prominent.

Dr. Harris: [4:32] This almost has a sculptural surface that helps to create some senses of volume as you look across it.

[4:39] Toward late in his career, he wasn’t so interested in capturing things quickly. He wanted to be able to return to a painting and continue to work it. He’s finding a solution to that problem and creating a studio out-of-doors where he can continue to work the surface, and so it does have that feeling of something that has layers and layers of paint, where the paint has been allowed to dry and then he’s put on new layers.

Dr. Zucker: [5:03] When we stand close to this canvas and we see those layers of paint and we see the way they — almost like a tapestry — lie over each other so that we can see the paint between strokes and the colors are not so much blended as overlaid.

Dr. Harris: [5:15] It’s hard not to think about all-over painting and Jackson Pollock. The way that the painting occupies our field of vision. How did he escape that field of vision in order to paint the landscape?

[5:29] You can almost imagine this way that the painting becomes, as it did for Jackson Pollock, a world unto itself that the artist enters and exists within and we do too, actually, within the space of this room.

Dr. Zucker: [5:42] That’s a really critical point. What begins to happen with the early modernists, certainly with Matisse and Picasso and ultimately with people like Pollock, and maybe here, too, is the conversation ceases to be a dialogue between the artist and its subject, and becomes, ultimately, a dialogue between the artist and the canvas. That seems to have happened here to beautiful result.

[6:05] [music]

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Water Lilies

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• Art in Context - Claude Monet "Water Lilies" - Impressions of Monet's Water Lily Art
• Khan Academy - Monet, Water Lilies
• Musée de l'Orangerie - The Water Lilies by Claude Monet

Water Lilies , series of some 250 oil paintings that were created by French Impressionist artist Claude Monet from the late 1890s to his death in 1926 and were focused on the water lily pond in his garden.

As Vincent van Gogh is associated in the public consciousness with sunflowers, Monet’s name is inextricably linked with water lilies. Almost as passionate a gardener as he was a painter, Monet bought a boggy piece of land next to his house at Giverny, France, in 1892, with the intention of transforming it into a Japanese water garden “for the pleasure of the eye, and for motifs to paint.” He created a pond surrounded by weeping willows and covered with exotic water lilies, which became the focus of his art for the rest of his life. He painted the water-lily-covered surface of the pond over and over again, day after day, year after year, and held in his mind the idea of turning his waterlily canvases into a giant decorative scheme that would encircle the viewer.

In 1914, his friend, the French prime minister Georges Clemenceau , persuaded him to embark upon the project. For the next decade Monet worked obsessively on his water lily paintings in a vast studio specially built to house the six-foot-high canvases, which were mounted on mobile easels so that he could experiment with grouping them together. Selected canvases were joined to create eight water lily compositions . These were presented to the French government and eventually installed in two oval rooms in the Orangerie the year after Monet’s death.

Many of the Water Lilies were acquired by private collections and major art museums throughout the world. The Museum of Modern Art , New York , was the first U.S. institution to obtain one of the monumental compositions. Following a major exhibition of many of the Water Lilies paintings in 1999, the Orangerie museum undertook a major restoration. The rooms were reopened to the public in 2006, allowing once again the experience of being surrounded by the peace and beauty of Monet’s “enchanted pond” while the hubbub of Paris continues outside.

Visiting Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion?

You must join the virtual exhibition queue when you arrive. If capacity has been reached for the day, the queue will close early.

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Claude monet (1840–1926).

The Bodmer Oak, Fontainebleau Forest

Claude Monet

Garden at Sainte-Adresse

Regatta at Sainte-Adresse

La Grenouillère

Camille Monet (1847–1879) on a Garden Bench

The Monet Family in Their Garden at Argenteuil

Edouard Manet

Poppy Fields near Argenteuil

The Parc Monceau

View of Vétheuil

The Manneporte near Etretat

Haystacks (Effect of Snow and Sun)

The Four Trees

Rouen Cathedral: The Portal (Sunlight)

Water Lilies

Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies

The Houses of Parliament (Effect of Fog)

Laura Auricchio Department of Art & Design Studies, Parsons The New School for Design

October 2004

Claude Monet was a key figure in the Impressionist movement that transformed French painting in the second half of the nineteenth century. Throughout his long career, Monet consistently depicted the landscape and leisure activities of Paris and its environs as well as the Normandy coast. He led the way to twentieth-century modernism by developing a unique style that strove to capture on canvas the very act of perceiving nature.

Raised in Normandy, Monet was introduced to plein-air painting by Eugène Boudin ( 2003.20.2 ), known for paintings of the resorts that dotted the region’s Channel coast, and subsequently studied informally with the Dutch landscapist Johan Jongkind (1819–1891). When he was twenty-two, Monet joined the Paris studio of the academic history painter Charles Gleyre. His classmates included Auguste Renoir , Frédéric Bazille, and other future Impressionists. Monet enjoyed limited success in these early years, with a handful of landscapes, seascapes, and portraits accepted for exhibition at the annual Salons of the 1860s. Yet rejection of many of his more ambitious works, notably the large-scale Women in the Garden (1866; Musée d’Orsay, Paris ), inspired Monet to join with Edgar Degas , Édouard Manet , Camille Pissarro, Renoir, and others in establishing an independent exhibition in 1874. Impression, Sunrise (1873; Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris), one of Monet’s contributions to this exhibition, drew particular scorn for the unfinished appearance of its loose handling and indistinct forms. Yet the artists saw the criticism as a badge of honor, and subsequently called themselves “Impressionists” after the painting’s title, even though the name was first used derisively.

Monet found subjects in his immediate surroundings, as he painted the people and places he knew best. His first wife, Camille ( 2002.62.1 ), and his second wife, Alice, frequently served as models. His landscapes chart journeys around the north of France ( 31.67.11 ) and to London, where he escaped the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. Returning to France, Monet moved first to Argenteuil, just fifteen minutes from Paris by train, then west to Vétheuil, Poissy, and finally to the more rural Giverny in 1883. His homes and gardens became gathering places for friends, including Manet and Renoir , who often painted alongside their host ( 1976.201.14 ). Yet Monet’s paintings cast a surprisingly objective eye on these scenes, which include few signs of domestic relations.

Following in the path of the Barbizon painters , who had set up their easels in the Fontainebleau Forest ( 64.210 ) earlier in the century, Monet adopted and extended their commitment to close observation and naturalistic representation. Whereas the Barbizon artists painted only preliminary sketches en plein air , Monet often worked directly on large-scale canvases out of doors, then reworked and completed them in his studio. His quest to capture nature more accurately also prompted him to reject European conventions governing composition, color, and perspective. Influenced by Japanese woodblock prints , Monet’s asymmetrical arrangements of forms emphasized their two-dimensional surfaces by eliminating linear perspective and abandoning three-dimensional modeling. He brought a vibrant brightness to his works by using unmediated colors, adding a range of tones to his shadows, and preparing canvases with light-colored primers instead of the dark grounds used in traditional landscape paintings.

Monet’s interest in recording perceptual processes reached its apogee in his series paintings (e.g., Haystacks [1891], Poplars [1892], Rouen Cathedral [1894]) that dominate his output in the 1890s. In each series, Monet painted the same site again and again, recording how its appearance changed with the time of day. Light and shadow seem as substantial as stone in his Rouen Cathedral ( 30.95.250 ) series. Monet reports that he rented a room across from the cathedral’s western facade in 1892 and 1893, where he kept multiple canvases in process and moved from one to the next as the light shifted. In 1894, he reworked the canvases to their finished states.

In the 1910s and 1920s, Monet focused almost exclusively on the picturesque water-lily pond ( 1983.532 ) that he created on his property at Giverny. His final series depicts the pond in a set of mural-sized canvases where abstract renderings of plant and water emerge from broad strokes of color and intricately built-up textures. Shortly after Monet died (a wealthy and well-respected man at the age of eighty-six), the French government installed his last water-lily series in specially constructed galleries at the Orangerie in Paris, where they remain today.

Auricchio, Laura. “Claude Monet (1840–1926).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cmon/hd_cmon.htm (October 2004)

Further Reading

House, John. Monet: Nature into Art . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

Tucker, Paul Hayes. Claude Monet: Life and Art . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Additional Essays by Laura Auricchio

• Auricchio, Laura. “ The Transformation of Landscape Painting in France .” (October 2004)
• Auricchio, Laura. “ Eighteenth-Century Women Painters in France .” (October 2004)
• Auricchio, Laura. “ The Nabis and Decorative Painting .” (October 2004)

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• 19th Century A.D.
• Arboreal Landscape
• Architecture
• Barbizon School
• Floral Motif
• Impressionism
• Oil on Canvas
• Preparatory Study
• Printmaking
• School of Fontainebleau

Artist or Maker

• Boudin, Eugène
• Degas, Edgar
• Jongkind, Johan Barthold
• Manet, Édouard
• Monet, Claude
• Pissarro, Camille
• Renoir, Auguste

Online Features

• The Artist Project: “George Condo on Claude Monet’s The Path through the Irises “
• Connections: “Light” by Bruce Schwarz
• Connections: “Trees” by Daniëlle Kisluk-Grosheide

To Paint A Water Lily Analysis

The speaker then describes the process of painting the lily. They start by sketching the outline of the flower, and then fill in the colors with care. The speaker pays attention to every detail, from the shadows cast by the petals to the highlights on the water.

“To Paint a Water Lily” is a poem that celebrates both nature and art. It shows how beauty can be found in the simplest things, and how art can help us appreciate the fragile beauty of life.

In Ted Hughes’ “To Paint a Water Lily,” the speaker examines the numerous complexities of nature by revealing the obstacles he faces as an artist in capturing its genuine significance. He sees a thrilling little realm of continual motion and activity hidden beneath the pond’s tranquil stillness, when he looks at it. 

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Water lilies.

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                          For as long as I can remember, I have had an interest in art and painting. In pre-school and elementary school, art was one of my favorite pastimes. I enjoyed expressing myself through drawing and choosing colors to represent my imagination. I began taking art lessons from a local artist, and I experimented with watercolors and oils. Although over time my interests broadened and art became less of a priority, I still admired that it symbolized more than just colors on a canvas.              Claude Monet's "Water Lilies" is an extraordinary work of art that has captivated me for some time. His reflection of the fleeting aspects of nature and subtle effects of the sun's passage are executed with an exotic modulation of color. "Water Lilies" is a replica of an environmental work of art he created in a strip of marshland across from his home. There he meditated and contemplated for over 20 years as he created his "Water Lilies" series. As I gaze at this magnificent work of art, I find myself drifting and reflecting about my past, present, and future.              My past has been dimmed by some difficult life experiences that have caused me to seek bits and pieces of serenity and tranquility. Monet's "Water Lilies" has provided me with many moments of comfort as I have searched for inner peace. The changes of light and shadow in the reflection of the water have been soothing to me, allowing me to find harmony within my environment, my future, and myself. .             

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Essays Related to Water Lilies

1. plants and water balance.

A structural adaptation of the water lily is that it has small and flat leaves. This adaptation is important because having smaller leaves means that the water lily has a greater surface area, which will increase the rate of photosynthesis. ... If the water lily did not have small and flat leaves it will not be to able to capture as much sunlight for photosynthesis which means that it will not be able to photosynthesize as efficiently. As a result, the water lily will not produce as much glucose and oxygen, which are raw products, needed for respiration to occur. It is important for respiratio...

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2. Secret Life of Bees

When Lily and Rosaleen came to live at August's, August's sister June disliked Lily for the sole reason of this hatred, except that Lily saw the hate directed toward people like Rosaleen, but it had roots within both competing sides. All throughout Lily's staying at August's house, June showed dispassion to Lily. Until one moment when Rosaleen, Lily, August and May- August's sister, were enjoying themselves in the yard, in a crazy game with water. Soon June joined them and started enjoying herself as well, when Lily sprayed June with water. Lily and June started st...

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Lily is constantly worried about money. ... Lily "was like a water-plant in the flux of the tides."" (Page 54) Lily was like a water-plant in the sense that she had no roots. ... Rosedale is quite smitten with Lily, and proposes marriage to her, however Lily refuses him. ... She no longer wants to be the roaming "water-plant."" ...

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4. Impressionism

"Blue Water-lilies" is one of Monet's later pictures. ... Brush strokes were both vertical and horizontal, lily pads being horizontally painted and the water with reflections of what looks like willow trees over the water. ... The lily pads are the main feature with dark blue and purple vertical lines of water. The reflection of the willow branches, overhang the main grouping of water lilies. ... I feel the focal point of this picture is the water lilie flowers placed randomly on the lily pads. ...

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Before Michiyo's arrives, Daisuke engages himself with arranging the lilies-of-the-valley, flower that is used to symbolize him. ... As a result, when Michiyo drinks the water from the bowl containing the lilies-of-the-valley, she is literally consuming his energy After she drinks the water, colour returns to her cheeks, and she is invigorated. ... Michiyo brings along three large white lilies during her visit. ... However, with Michiyo's lilies, he snips the ends to half their length, as if to prevent them from "jumping out" and grabbing hold of him. ... In the same way that...

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a) Lily: The image of lily in the Bible is fragrant, pure, white, delicate and lively. ... A lily is beautiful while thorns are ugly. ... Among thorns, the lily is very likely to be hurt. ... Here the lilies symbolize life. ... Lilies taste sweet, but myrrh tastes bitter. ...

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My friends Lily Tran, Vi Nguyen and Hong Nguyen decided that I should not spend New Year's Day alone. ... They decided to plan a trip to the Saigon Water Park, about half hour's drive from Saigon, and Vietnam New year dinner afterward. ... The drive to the Saigon Water Park reminded me of "Mr. ... It was really great when we arrived at the Saigon Water Park, which water around the park. ... They love to swimmy and hiking under water. ...

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On the wild side, steers will come in winter; and water lilies will blossom in summer. The scene of Hollins Pond will change according to seasons, and water lilies can be the floor for black birds and the ceiling for fish. ...

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Discussion Questions

Analyze the concept of agency in relation to kinship—how does it function within the Dakota community? Pick two characters and discuss their embracing or rejection of personal agency.

In the novel, the Dakotas have brief yet significant dealings with white men. Analyze the Dakotas’ perception of white men and how it changes over time.

There are three main roles for women: wife, perpetual virgin, and promiscuous woman. Discuss these categories of identity and what they say about the community in which they are entrenched.

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Waterlily Essay Questions

By ella cara deloria, essay questions.

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What is the symbolic meaning of Waterlily's marriage to Sacred Horse?

Waterlily's marriage embodies sacrifice because she does not marry out of love, but for the exchange for the two horses meant to be gifted to her late grandmother. Before the death of Goku (Waterlily's grandmother), her uncle had promised to gift her with two horses. Unfortunately, the two horses are stolen. The youthful man's family is ready to offer two horses in exchange for Waterlily. Waterlily accepts to get married to the young man so that her uncle can get the two horses to honor her Goku. Consequently, Waterlily sacrifices her love in exchange for a gift presented to her late grandmother.

How does the author tackle the issue of culture and traditions in the book ‘Waterlily’?

The book is entirely about the traditions and the mysticism of the Dakota women. The readers are introduced to the main character, Waterlily, and they follow her throughout her life. The Dakota women are keen on observing the Sundance, a traditional annual event that all families are expected to attend. The readers also come across the ritual of honoring the death when Waterlily's uncle gifts her late grandmother with two horses. Additionally, there is wife inheritance, which is demonstrated after Sacred Horse's death (Waterlily's husband). After the death of Sacred Horse, his siblings ask water Lily to lure one of her husband's cousins to marry her so that he can take care of her newborn.

Do you think that fate is among the primary themes in the book ‘Waterlily’?

The theme of fate is evident in the book because, at last, Waterlily marries the man of her dreams, Lowanla. Waterlily first met this handsome boy at the Sun Dance ritual. Waterlily got attracted to him, and she offered to give him water though he denied. The boy did not seem to understand that Waterlily was deeply in love with him. As fate turns out, Lowanla is the cousin of the late Sacred Horse, and he is the one to inherit Waterlily. Therefore, the two ends being husband and wife out of fate.

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Waterlily Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Waterlily is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Ego is an individual's sense of self-worth or self-importance.

Why does the author choose to begin Blue Bird’s story in paragraph 2 with so cruelly ended in a day?

The author provides the exposition which gives context to the story.

Dr. Livingstone was a famous:

(b) explorer

Study Guide for Waterlily

Waterlily study guide contains a biography of Ella Cara Deloria, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Waterlily
• Waterlily Summary
• Character List

Essays for Waterlily

Waterlily essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Waterlily by Ella Cara Deloria.

• Native Births: The Isolation and Independence of New Mothers in Waterlily

Wikipedia Entries for Waterlily

• Introduction

Origami Water Lily

This origami water lily is a traditional model – this means that it has been around for so long that no one knows who invented it. You would think that such a flower would be dead easy to make given that it has been around for who knows how long. Not necessarily so. This model consists of three blintz folds (easy) and an inversion (not easy). The inversion part is tricky and you have to do it four times! Are you up to the challenge? Let’s see how well you fare with this origami water lily.

Instructions for Origami Water Lily

Start with a square sheet of paper with the white-side facing up. Fold the paper in half (top to bottom) and unfold. Fold in half again (left to right) and unfold. This gives you an “+” shaped crease.

Do the first blintz fold. A blintz fold is when you fold the four corners of the paper to the center of the paper. Perform a second blintz fold: fold the four corners to the middle again. Turn the model over. Perform the third blintz fold: fold all four corners to the middle. Here, the paper is getting a bit thick so take care to make crisp folds. Partially unfold the two top flaps. , lift and invert the flap of paper so it comes forward. Partially unfold the top two flaps. Partially unfold. towards the front. Unfold slightly,… Wait, you’re not quite done yet! Turn the model over. Peel back the paper as far out as it will go. These will be the second tier of petals. Turn the model over again. 238 IMAGES To Paint a Water Lily Essay 10 Lines on Lily Flower/Water Lily in English for School Students 6 Water Lily Facts That Will Make You Love Them Even More 10 Lines on Lily Flower For Students And Kids || Water Flower || Short Essay || Paragraph in English Capturing Nature's Complexity: Ted Hughes' "To Paint a Water Lily" Free ⇉To Paint a Water Lilly Sample Essay Example VIDEO How 2 draw a WATER LILY Water lily's pond painting|| #waterlily #shorts Beautiful Unique Water Lily #satisfying #flowers #naturelovers Water lily #gardening #rainyseason #shorts My water lily FINALLY BLOOMED What does water lily taste like? COMMENTS Water lily The genus Nymphaea makes up the water lilies proper, or water nymphs, with 46 species. The common North American white water lily, or pond lily, is Nymphaea odorata.The European white water lily is N. alba.Both species have reddish leaves when young and large fragrant flowers. The leaf blades of N. alba have a deep narrow notch. Other species of Nymphaea have pink, yellow, red, or blue flowers ... "Water Lilies" by Claude Monet Analysis In conclusion, Claude Monet's "Water Lilies" can be described as featuring complementary colours, high level of saturation and vibrancy which makes it very appealing to the audience. In this painting Monet resorts to the use of natural hues and bright tones which adds to the picture's colour harmony and the positive impression it produces. Water Lilies Paintings at Giverny, Claude Monet: Analysis The Impressionist paintings of water lilies (nymphéas) created by Claude Monet during the last thirty years of his life, are often considered by art critics to represent his finest work. They demonstrate his extraordinary skill at plein-air painting, his feeling for colour and appreciation of light. In 1883 he rented a house at Giverny, fifty ... What Monet's Water Lilies Taught Me About Beauty and Pain A woman looking at "Water Lillies" by Claude Monet in Saint Louis Art Museum. ... Kelleher is the author of The Ugly History of Beautiful Things, an essay collection that ... lit from above ... To Paint A Water Lily Essay In the poem "To Paint a Water Lily" by Ted Hughes, the speaker conveys his attitude toward nature as perplexing, complex, and deceiving. He also expresses his opinion of the artist and the difficulties brought on by him trying to paint and recreate not only the picture of a water lily and its natural scene, but also capture the intense environment that is both peaceful and full of constant ... Water Lily: How to Plant, Grow, and Care for Water Lilies Step 3: Preparation of Planting Mix. Water lilies prefer loamy soil rather than more lightweight potting mixes. Prepare a mixture of gravel and non-fertilized potting soil with peat moss. This enhances the stable ground for the lily's root system and helps in maintaining the health of the plant. Smarthistory by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker. Claude Monet, Les Nymphéas (The Water Lilies), suite of paintings on permanent exhibition at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris. Room 1: Morning, oil on two canvas panels, 200 x 425 cm, c. 1918-26 Clouds, oil on three canvas panels, 200 x 1275 cm, c. 1918-26 Green Highlights, oil on two canvas panels ... Literary Analysis Of Monet's Waterlilies Ted Hughes's "To Paint a Water Lily" tells about an artist painting a scene of nature, and his choice to focus on a water lily. The poem also shows how the artist has two ways of thinking about nature. One way the artist thinks about nature is as a violent and scary thing. The artist also thinks of nature as a thing of beauty and grandeur. Water Lilies Essay On Water Lily. The water lily is a rainy seasonal flower. You can get the flowers in almost every pond, tank, pool, lake, river and other water bodies. It will amuse you with the white color of numerous flowers. Mainly water lily has two colors: white and pink. Though there are two colors, only white water lily is the Bangladesh national ... How To Paint A Water Lily Essay 833 Words. 4 Pages. Open Document. Ted Hughes uses literary techniques in the most vivid way, to illustrate what his idea of a water lily painting looked like. In all of his work, the goal is to describe a task or a thing, but make the reader understand it by using nature as the key. The task in this poem is presented by the title "How To ... Essay In southwest Rwanda in 1987, German botanist Professor Eberhard Fischer of Koblenz-Landau University discovered the world's smallest lily, or the "thermal" water lily. However, that was the last sighting of any wild growing thermal water lilies. The water lily's lily pad usually grows to an unimpressive almost one centimeter in diameter. Water Lilies Water Lilies, series of some 250 oil paintings that were created by French Impressionist artist Claude Monet from the late 1890s to his death in 1926 and were focused on the water lily pond in his garden.. As Vincent van Gogh is associated in the public consciousness with sunflowers, Monet's name is inextricably linked with water lilies. Almost as passionate a gardener as he was a painter ... Waterlily Summary and Study Guide Essay Topics. Tools. Beta. Discussion Questions. Summary and Study Guide. Overview. Ella Cara Deloria's 1988 novel, Waterlily, is an examination of the Dakota Native American way of life. The novel follows a Dakota camp circle called White Ghost—a group composed of several families that live and travel together. Claude Monet (1840-1926) In the 1910s and 1920s, Monet focused almost exclusively on the picturesque water-lily pond that he created on his property at Giverny. His final series depicts the pond in a set of mural-sized canvases where abstract renderings of plant and water emerge from broad strokes of color and intricately built-up textures. ... Additional Essays by ... To Paint A Water Lily Analysis Essay on Poem, Ted Hughes To Paint A Water Lily Analysis. "To Paint a Water Lily" by Ted Hughes is a poem that explores the beauty and fragility of nature. The speaker describes the process of painting a water lily, and how the delicate flower is transformed into art. The poem begins with the speaker describing the scene before them: a water lily floating on a pond. FREE Water Lilies Essay Access to over 100,000 complete essays and term papers; Fully built bibliographies and works cited; One-on-one writing assistance from a professional writer; ... Claude Monet's "Water Lilies" is an extraordinary work of art that has captivated me for some time. His reflection of the fleeting aspects of nature and subtle effects of the sun's ... Claude Monet Water Lilies Essay Decent Essays. 406 Words. 2 Pages. Open Document. This piece of artwork was created by Claude Monet around 1915-1926 and it is titled "Water Lilies, Morning: Willows". Monet used oil on canvas to as his media when creating this piece. The right side of the artwork is shown on page 142 in the "A World of Art" textbook. (PDF) Water lily research: Past, present, and future The water lily order Nymphaeales includes ~100 species and all grow into aquatic herbs. Most of them are not only economic crops but have, for thousands of years, been regarded as cultural symbols ... PDF Modern Eco-Friendly Containers: Transforming Water lilies into Water lilies Conforming to some papers that the researchers have found, Water hyacinth was introduced into many parts of the world, including the Philippines, as an ornamental garden pond plant due to its beauty. But today, Tacio declared in his article pertaining to water lilies, it is considered a ... Waterlily Essay Topics Analyze the Dakotas' perception of white men and how it changes over time. 3. There are three main roles for women: wife, perpetual virgin, and promiscuous woman. Discuss these categories of identity and what they say about the community in which they are entrenched. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of "Waterlily" by ... Waterlily Essay Questions Written by people who wish to remain anonymous. 1. What is the symbolic meaning of Waterlily's marriage to Sacred Horse? Waterlily's marriage embodies sacrifice because she does not marry out of love, but for the exchange for the two horses meant to be gifted to her late grandmother. Origami Water Lily Step 12: Turn the model over again. Top view (left) and side view (right). There's a lot you can do with this origami water lily. You can pull the petals up towards the sky so the flower looks more like a bowl rather than a plate. You can also curl the various flaps so they appear more like curled petals. 10 Lines on Lily Flower/Water Lily in English for School Students Lots of people use lily as a flower gift. 7. When someone looks at a white lily, it feels peace and unity. 8. Only white lily and tiger lilies have a beautiful smell. Other types of lilies are odorless. 9. Pollen of water lily is very dangerous for cats. It could be poisonous for cats only. essay homework paper phd review speech study thesis