Le Grand Canal is an oil on canvas painting by French Impressionist painter Claude Monet (1840 - 1926). This painting is part of a series of paintings Monet undertook during 1908. This painting series en plein air, is a classic view of the Grand Canal, an attempt to capture the ever-changing face of Venice, as seen from the Palazzo Barbaro, where he stayed during his trip, was painted during a period that is generally regarded by art historians as the peak of his career. One of the paintings from this series of Venetian waterscapes by Claude Monet was sold for more than $35 million at 2015 Sotheby's auction. Sotheby's called this painting "one of the most celebrated Venice paintings". Previously it has been in the private collection of the New Orleans sugar magnate, Hunt Henderson, who was a noted art collector.

This painting was undertaken on Monet's trip to Venice in the autumn of the year 1908, when the artist responded to an invitation from the American woman Mary Young Hunter, to visit her at the Palazzo Barbaro, in Venice. Monet was 68 years old this year. Hunter was a friend of Monet's wife, Alice, who invited the couple to come to visit her in Venice, where she rented this palazzo. Initially Monet was not keen but he did decide to travel. Monet and his wife arrived in Italy on October 1.

While there Monet completed a series of artwork on the Canale Grande painting the same motif at different times of the day. Monet had the habit of studying the same subject in a varying light, at different times of the day, which resulted during his active career in many distinct Monet series, like for example the Water Lilies series, Poplar series, Rouen Cathedral series, Haystacks series and Charing Cross Bridge series. Monet painted 37 works of Venice during his three-month stay in Italy, from October to December, including this painting and five more depicting the same theme, Canale Grande. One is hosted at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

This painting depicts the view, from the Palazzo Barbaro. Monet’s series introduced a fresh approach of a theme that was painted by many notable artist before him. The series are a pictorial exploration of the light upon the ancient city. The painter captured the sensations according to how the appearance of the motif changed as the light shifted on the water and its surroundings. The painter used the mooring-poles to counterbalance the buildings of the background including the Baroque church of Santa Maria della Salute. Monet was more preoccupied with capturing the light on the water and the sun rays reflections in this painting than the well known panoramas and sites or buildings in Venice, even if he stated that the city was very beautiful.

This is a part of the Wikipedia article used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). The full text of the article is here →