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Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer)

Painting composed of short, dense brushstrokes depicts two domed stacks of wheat that cast long shadows on a field. The angled light indicates either a rising or setting sun.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • Painting composed of short, dense brushstrokes depicts two domed stacks of wheat that cast long shadows on a field. The angled light indicates either a rising or setting sun.

Date:

1890/91

Artist:

Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926)

About this artwork

The monumental stacks that Claude Monet depicted in his series Stacks of Wheat rose fifteen to twenty feet and stood just outside the artist’s farmhouse at Giverny. Through 1890 and 1891, he worked on this series both in the field, painting simultaneously at several easels, and in the studio, refining pictorial harmonies. In May 1891, Monet hung fifteen of these canvases next to each other in one small room in the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris. An unprecedented critical and financial success, the exhibition marked a breakthrough in Monet’s career, as well as in the history of French art. In this view, and in nearly all of the autumn views in the series, the conical tops of the stacks break the horizon and push into the sky. But in most of the winter views, which constitute the core of the series, the stacks seem wrapped by bands of hill and field, as if bedded down for the season. For Monet, the stack was a resonant symbol of sustenance and survival. He followed this group with further series depicting poplars, the facade of Rouen Cathedral, and, later, his own garden at Giverny. The Art Institute has the largest group of Monet’s Stacks of Wheat in the world.

Status

On View, Gallery 243

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist

Claude Monet

Title

Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer)

Place

France (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1891

Medium

Oil on canvas

Inscriptions

Inscribed lower left: Claude Monet 91

Dimensions

60 × 100.5 cm (23 5/8 × 39 9/16 in.); Framed: 75.6 × 116.6 × 7.4 cm (29 3/4 × 45 7/8 × 2 7/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Arthur M. Wood, Sr. in memory of Pauline Palmer Wood

Reference Number

1985.1103

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/64818/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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