In 2026, we mark the centenary of Claude Monet’s death, and museums across Europe are celebrating the occasion with exhibitions exploring different aspects of his life and work. At the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, the focus is on Monet’s fascination with the changing effects of light and the passage of time. The Musée Marmottan Monet explores his landscapes and his influence on subsequent generations. Earlier in the year, Frankfurt’s Städel Museum turned its attention to Monet’s coastal scenes, while Giverny celebrated his water lilies. In Verona, Monet: A Life in Colour is due to open in November 2026.

Monet and the passage of time
The Musée de l’Orangerie exhibition explores this theme through four key approaches:

1. Capturing a fleeting moment: At the heart of Impressionism lies the attempt to capture the atmosphere of a particular moment. Monet’s paintings make this fleeting quality of time their subject, preserving the changing effects of light, colour and atmosphere.
2. The same subject, seen at different times: In his celebrated series, Monet repeatedly painted haystacks, poplar trees and Rouen Cathedral in different light and weather conditions. These paintings reveal how our perception of the same subject can change from one moment to the next.
3. The Water Lilies as the culmination: Monet’s Nymphéas (Water Lilies) form the centrepiece of the exhibition. Here, he moves beyond capturing individual moments to create an immersive, almost timeless visual experience.
4. Monet and the modern world: The exhibition places his work in the context of the nineteenth century, when railways, clocks and the accelerating pace of everyday life were transforming people’s experience of time.

The exhibition brings together nearly 40 paintings by Monet, drawn mainly from the collections of the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée Marmottan Monet, alongside loans from public and private collections in France and abroad. The selection highlights different phases of his career, with particular emphasis on the Water Lilies series.

At the heart of the exhibition is a fascinating question: how can an artist capture the fleeting nature of experience through colour and light?

Monet lived during a period of rapid change, as industrialisation transformed cities, landscapes and everyday life. His paintings reflect this shifting world, inviting us to look more closely at how we perceive our surroundings.

This is particularly evident in his famous series. Monet returned again and again to the same subjects – haystacks, poplar trees, Rouen Cathedral and the Houses of Parliament in London – painting them at different times of day and under changing light conditions. Rather than simply recording what he saw, he explored how a familiar scene could take on an entirely different character from one moment to the next. In a sense, he broke the day down into a succession of fleeting impressions, each with its own distinctive mood.