Monet’s Sketchbooks from the Marmottan Monet Museum (Paris)

The Marmottan museum offers you to explore Monet’s sketchbooks on its web site.

Each album contains drawing spanning over several years. Some sketches were studies for later paintings (Luncheon on the grass; The Saint-Lazare Station; Haystack at Giverny ; Water lily pond).

The lines are fluid and forms are refined by the artist in sucessive waves. The drawing is quick and free, straight from the brain onto the paper. Almost no shadows to be seen (apart from the drawings of the children reading).

On the numerous water lily pond studies, the lines have an abstract beauty, like the marks the wooden rake leaves on the gravel of a Zen garden.

The presentation of the sketchbooks is superb. You can navigate the pages, zoom in and out, flip the page around (Monet was using the sketchbooks both ways). Each sketchbook has an introduction and dates and legends for each drawing.

Click here to start your visit.