A Windmill near Zaandam (Moulin près de Zaandam), 1871 by Claude Monet

A Windmill near Zaandam, painted by Claude Monet in 1871, captures a traditional Dutch windmill rising above the flat polder landscape near Zaandam, its dark sails set against a pale, cloud-streaked sky as sailing barges drift along the tidal waterway below. Monet painted the work during a five-month stay in the Netherlands, having fled France during the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune, and the roughly twenty Zaandam canvases he produced there mark an early, formative engagement with the loose brushwork and atmospheric light that would define Impressionism.

Artist: Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926). Date: 1871.

A Windmill near Zaandam (Moulin près de Zaandam), 1871 by Claude Monet. Dutch Landscape Wall Art Canvas Print.