The Seine at Bas-Meudon

Although born and trained in Holland, Jongkind spent much of his life painting outdoors in France. In this depiction of Bas-Meudon near Paris, the artist applied paint in small patches of bright color to suggest the intensity of outdoor light. Although typcially finished in the studio from open-air sketches, Jongkind's oil paintings achieve a convincing immediacy that greatly impressed the young Claude Monet. The two met in the early 1860s and spent part of a summer painting together along the coast of Normandy. "From that time he was my real master," Monet later acknowledged, "it was to him that I owe the final education of my eye."