Claude Monet – A Row of Poplars

A Row of Poplars is a hand-painted oil reproduction of an autumn motif by Monet: slender trunks rise the whole height of the upright canvas, the crowns burn orange and rust, and below they return as vertical strokes in a narrow band of water.

A Row of Poplars – Claude Monet

What is on the canvas

The canvas is upright and narrow. A row of slender poplar trunks rises the
whole height, painted as thin pink-grey verticals; the nearest stands at the right edge and the
rest fall back in a shallow curve to the left, growing finer that way. The upper third is filled
with the crowns: densely woven strokes of orange, rust, ochre and dark green that continue past
the top edge and close it. Behind the trunks and below the crowns lies a wide golden-yellow band
of lower foliage running the full width. The sky shows only in the gaps between the trunks and is
a pale cream yellow, with no blue in it. About a fifth of the canvas from the bottom is
the river: a dark blue-green bank line runs above it, and in the water the trunks
return as vertical orange and green reflections, softer and more drawn out than the trees above
them.

Verticals and a single horizontal

The whole picture is built of verticals — trunks above, reflections below — and only one
horizontal interrupts them: the dark bank line just above the water. That single stroke is what
says where the land ends and the river begins; without it the reflections would read as a
continuation of the trees. The colours are ordered by temperature rather than by object: warm
orange above, gold in the middle, cool blue-green below. This oil on canvas reproduction is
therefore more a question about how colour carries distance than a description of a row of trees.
The brushwork is short and dense in the foliage, long and dragged in the water, so the same
subject is given two different speeds.

The subject among Monet’s works — and what is not established about this original

The same row seen from another distance is
Poplars. The tree at the water as a
single figure stands in Weeping Willow,
the group of the same trees in The Willows.
How Monet handles reflection when the water is the main subject is shown by
Morning on the Seine, near Giverny.

What we deliberately do not state here: Monet painted this motif in more than
one version, so which of them is the original behind this particular reproduction is not
established. You will therefore find no year of execution, no collection name and no accession
number on this page. We say what is visible on the canvas and nothing beyond it.

How it works on the wall

The format is upright, in a ratio of 5 : 8, so distinctly tall and narrow. Work like this does
not ask for a wide wall but for a high one: it does very well between two doors, beside a window
or in a stairwell, where the eye is already travelling upward. 40 x 60 cm and 50 x 80 cm suit a
narrow hallway wall or a vertical group. 65 x 100 cm is exactly the size of the
original and is offered. 70 x 110 cm and 80 x 120 cm are the usual choices beside a sofa
or a sideboard, where the work sets a vertical against low furniture. 90 x 140 cm, 100 x 150 cm
and 120 x 180 cm are meant for tall rooms. Because the range of colour is warm, hand-painted
canvas art of this kind warms even a cool grey wall.

Hand-painted, not printed

This fine art reproduction is made with a brush, not a printer. A print lays the colour in an
evenly thin film, so crowns and water come out equally smooth. Applied by hand, the foliage is
made of hundreds of short thick touches standing above the canvas, while the reflections in the
water are pulled thin and vertical. Light is returned differently by those two surfaces, so
walking past the wall the crowns glow before the water does — a print cannot do that, because
there everything is the same thickness. Because it is handwork, every copy differs a little.

Custom sizes, frame, and the view on your own wall

If none of the eight sizes suits your room, we paint to the size you set yourself, keeping the
ratio of the sides so the trunks stay slender and do not broaden. A 3D application is available
for the frame — it is for frame selection only and does not place the work in
your room. If you want to see how it will look on your own wall, that is the separate
visualisation service. The two do not overlap, so we do not mix them.

Ordering, lead time and approval before dispatch

The work is painted to order, so the lead time is 15 to 45 days, depending on
the size chosen and how busy the studio is. Before anything is sent we send you a photograph of
the finished piece for approval; only once you confirm do we stretch the canvas on a wooden frame
and prepare it for hanging. As wall decor it hangs better a little high, because the subject
itself pulls upward. The whole range, including further reproductions on canvas and famous
paintings on canvas, is in the
Claude Monet gallery.

• Subject: a row of slender poplars in autumn colour, a narrow band of river below with vertical reflections.
• Technique: oil on canvas; the foliage in short dense touches, the reflections in long vertical strokes.
• Sizes: upright format 5 : 8, eight sizes from 40 x 60 cm to 120 x 180 cm; 65 x 100 cm is the size of the original.
• Worth knowing: the whole picture is interrupted by a single horizontal — the dark bank line just above the water.