A Moment Suspended in Beauty with Claude Monet

I recently rediscovered, while meandering through one of my usual internet wanderings, the breathtaking body of work created by Claude Monet (1840–1926)—you know, the French painter and one of the founding figures of the Impressionist movement. Some of his paintings are simply sublime. There’s something extraordinary in the way he handles color. Even when the shapes of his landscapes remain only loosely defined, it’s through the colors that you begin to feel everything: the wind brushing the cliffs of Pourville, the song of the cicadas and the crushing heat of a summer in Monaco, the dew-drenched freshness of a spring morning in Giverny, the hush of London fog and the distant hum of the city, the scent of petrichor and the lingering warmth of an August evening…

He captures not only the essence of a place, but the atmosphere of a fleeting moment—the exact feeling suspended in time as he lays down his first brushstroke. It’s as though each painting becomes a photograph of an emotion, more than a mere depiction of a scene. It’s as if the canvas is breathing: the sky seems to be clearing, the bird on the fence looks ready to take flight, the sun hovers low on the horizon, and the water lilies drift across the pond, carried gently by the wind.

It’s a feeling almost like déjà vu. Haven’t we all, at some point, been struck silent by the beauty of a landscape—just for a moment—without being able to capture it, no matter how many times we tried with a camera? Monet knew. He knew exactly which colors to choose, which gestures to trace, which light to render to preserve that fleeting beauty—already dissolving into memory by the time he finished the canvas.

I love many of the landscapes he painted throughout his life, but the ones I find myself returning to are the most colorful—the joyful ones. And I wonder, was he profoundly happy to see so much color in the world and to reflect it back with such radiance? Or perhaps it was the opposite: perhaps his daily life lacked color so deeply that he needed to flood his paintings with it. We’ll never truly know.

I still remember the paper prints of his paintings—framed and carefully hung along the stairwell that led to my grandparents’ apartment. I used to pass by them as one might greet old friends. I believe one was Madame Monet and Her Son (1875), and maybe Garden at Sainte-Adresse, hanging next to one of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.

If you’d like, you can explore the full catalogue of Monet’s works on this Wikipedia page. You’ll notice how many of them are simply listed as “Private collection.” What a wonder it must be—to live with a true Monet in your home. A little piece of history. A brief moment of beauty, captured by the magic of his brush. So for today’s article, I thought—why not offer you something a little different? I wanted to share something that inspires me, that brings me joy—and perhaps might delight you too: a selection of my favorite paintings by Claude Monet. My own little private collection.