Road of La Roche-Guyon 1880

Claude Monet made this painting of the road of La Roche-Guyon with oil paint, likely en plein air. Monet was devoted to capturing the fleeting qualities of light, and the quick, broken brushstrokes show the way he built up the image, layering tones and colors to create the overall impression of the scene. In his commitment to capturing the light effects of the landscape he used manufactured paints, created through industrialized processes, rather than the historic processes of hand-grinding pigments. Monet's painting reflects a shift in the art world as well as the socio-economic landscape of industrialized France, and the rise of consumer culture that changed the way artists worked. Paying attention to materials, processes, and social context help us understand this landscape painting.