Claude Monet

In Vétheuil, a town farther down the Seine than Argenteuil and hence still untouched by signs of modernity, Monet painted no suburban gardens or sailboat regattas. A sweep of country road leading into the village, bordered by messy stretches of grasses and weeds sodden with melting snow, takes up the bottom half of the picture. The eye is not held by the colors and texture present in the foreground but rushes past, only to be stopped by the phalanx of houses constituting the village, their rectilinear forms hastily sketched in blue. Perspective here is exaggerated, with the point of view chosen so that the roadway covers what seems a disproportionate area of the canvas. Monet could have seen such a composition in nineteenth-century Japanese woodblock prints that were being imported in France in large numbers.