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For two summers, Claude Monet was captivated by the same secluded stretch of the river Seine. Here, he trained his eye on the light cast upon the river as the sun rose, recording the elusive effects of the changing sky on the surrounding landscape. There are few works more tranquil than Monet’s meditative Matinées sur la Seine paintings, a series which captures the diaphanous light on the river during the summer mornings of 1896 and 1897. Monet would work on many canvases at the same time, slotting them into the different grooves that lined his famous bateau-atelier. As the light changed during the course of the morning, he quickly switched from one canvas to the next. These were among the last scenes the artist created of his cherished Seine, which had provided the site for some of his most defining Impressionist compositions. In these serene paintings, Monet evokes the poetry of dawn and the atmospheric effects wrought by daybreak. Claud
