Houses on the Achterzaan 1871

Claude Monet made ‘Houses on the Achterzaan’ with oil on canvas. The work is built from the ground up, starting with the thinnest wash of colour, a pale blue layer brushed thinly across the canvas. Looking closely, you can see the loose brushwork of the houses and foliage. Monet clearly made the most of the material qualities of oil paint - it's creamy texture, and the way it catches the light. The paint is applied with an immediacy, that suggests he captured the houses along the canal 'en plein air' - in open air. The Achterzaan river was a bustling industrial area in the 19th century. The houses lining the canal would have been home to workers in nearby factories and mills. The canvas, paints and brushes employed by Monet, all products of industrial manufacture, were readily available as a result of the growth of consumer culture. The labor and lives of ordinary working-class people is captured here, even as the artist elevates the everyday through the techniques of fine art.