The Poppy Field near Argenteuil (French: Coquelicots) is an oil-on-canvas landscape painting by the French ImpressionistClaude Monet, completed in 1873.
Claude Monet, then aged 33, lived in Argenteuil (Val-d'Oise) when he completed this painting in 1873.[1]
Titled in French Les Coquelicots, Coquelicots, or Coquelicots, la promenade, this painting was presented the following year at the First Impressionist Exhibition.[1] It brings together some characteristics of impressionist works: an outdoor painting, light shades and sketched details.[2]
This painting, probably painted in the vicinity of Argenteuil, then a rural area, depicts a large field, with poppies dominating the left-hand side.[2] In the foreground is a woman with a parasol and straw hat, accompanied by a child. In the middle ground, we see a couple similar to the first. The background, at the far end of the field, consists of a row of trees, with a house visible.
The two mother-child couples mark out an oblique structuring the painting.[1][2] The left half is dominated by red and the right by a blue-green. The woman in the foreground is probably Camille Doncieux, the artist's wife, accompanied by a young Jean Monet, who, born in 1867, would be six years old in this scene.[1]
^ abcBrocvielle, Vincent (2017). "Les Coquelicots. Monet". Pourquoi c’est connu? Le fabuleux destin des icônes du XIXe siècle (in French). Réunion des musées nationaux-Grand Palais. pp. 66–67. ISBN9782711864331.
