Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies is a very early piece of painting by Claude Monet. Monet had drawn a lot of water lilies throughout his entire life. Compare to his late painting of water lilies, this piece shows more content and makes people hard to catch the main character in the painting at the first glimpse. The bridge cuts the picture into two parts: the upper part is the background of this painting which consists of reeds, bushes, willows and trees, while the lower part focuses on the water lilies and the shadow of the bridge. Monet used heavy layers of dots to imply the endless greenness in the background and the blooms of water lilies in the pond.

Monet didn’t choose bright colors to present this painting; it even looks a bit messy and chaotic with the mixture of pink and green colors. The brush strokes presented here are also complicated with the horizontal drawings for water lilies while vertical for the greenness in the background. However, because there are only two main colors, the painting doesn’t give the viewers a strong and sharp image but instead leaves a peace and clam impression.

This painting perfectly matches my idea of impressionism that the artists don’t depict the landscape with exact and real details but the sensation produced by the objects. As the impressionists claim that when they draw a landscape they are drawing the air around it instead of the object itself. In this piece of painting, it’s not hard to see Monet’s effort into illustrating the sensation of the bridge and water lilies instead of elaborating a certain detail.