Girl with Dog

Discussion

FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

Painted a year before the first impressionist exhibition in Paris, this canvas has all the characteristics that would become associated with the movement. The loose brushwork —seen in the dog and at the scribble of foliage against the sky—suggests that Monet worked quickly and directly in front of his subject outdoors. The girl's fashionable outfit—a striped dress with layers of petticoats underneath, a bustle, and side-button boots—locates her in the contemporary moment. Monet likely painted this in Argenteuil, a small town outside Paris where he lived and worked for much of the 1870s.

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