Poppies at Argenteuil

A woman and child (probably Monet's wife, Camille, and their son Jean.) walk through a field of thick grass; red poppies cloak the bank that rises to the left; while another woman and child appear at the top of this bank. There is no sign of any link between the two pairs of figures, and no obvious reason why the woman in the foreground has lowered her parasol. On the horizon a ragged line of trees closes off the field, with, at the centre, a single red-roofed house. Although it is a fine day, there are some clouds in the sky, which temporarily mask the sun. As a result, an even light is spread over the whole landscape.

This is a very ordinary, pleasant scene, although the site is not especially picturesque; neither the lie of the land nor the trees in the background offer any particular interest. In fact, there are some suggestions that we are near a town, rather than in the heart of the countryside - the figures are dressed as middle class people rather than peasants, and the house in the background is a substantial villa, not a rural cottage. The scene probably is a meadow near Argenteuil, the town on the River Seine just north-west of Paris where Monet lived and painted at the time.

The treatment of the scene, too, gives no special attention to any of the elements in the scene. The brushwork is variegated and informal, suggesting the diverse textures and shapes of figures, flowers, grasses, foliage and clouds without any great detail. At first glance, the viewer's eye is attracted by the dark jacket of the woman on the right and the sharp tonal contrasts in her hat, as well as by the array of loose red dabs that suggest the poppies that give the painting its title, set against the grey-green of the grasses. As we look further, we see the boy, seemingly holding a bunch of poppies and waist deep in the grasses, and the other figures to the left, and we register the delicacy and finesse of the nuances of colour and touch that indicate the receding space of the meadow.

Poppy Field was first exhibited in 1874. It appeared in the independently organized group show in Paris - see Impressionist Exhibitions in Paris, for details - that first prompted the art critic Louis Leroy (1812-1885) to christen the group the 'Impressionists', focusing on their sketch-like technique and everyday subject matter, which seemed to prioritize the immediate impression of a scene over any deeper meaning and significance. In many ways, this approach to painting challenged contemporary expectations about the purpose of the fine arts - that they should convey values and beliefs beyond the mere surface appearance of the work itself. The vision of the French countryside that was current in the art exhibitions of the period, notably at the vast annual exhibitions of the Paris Salon, focused either on the spectacular scenery of coasts and hills or on the fruitfulness of France's agricultural lands. In this hermetically sealed world of traditionalist aesthetics, there was no place for middle-class figures or hints of the proximity of the city - no room for signs of material change or social distinctions. Poppy Field posed a direct challenge to these expectations and to the conventions upheld by the French Academy; the figures strolling in the meadow suggest nothing beyond the pleasures of a summer day, and the scene displays none of the markers of the true countryside.