Claude Monet, "Antibes From La Salis"

Claude Monet, Antibes Seen From La Salis, 1888; Toledo Museum of Art.

The original Monet painting, shown above in a photo from the Toledo Museum of Art, is spectacular, with Monet's signature blues, and plays of light that were so difficult for him at the time: "I'm wrestling with the sun. And what a sun it is!" According to the museum, "His efforts to express the light and color of the Mediterranean fulfilled a promise to his companion, Alice Hoschedé, that what he would paint in Antibes would be 'sweetness itself, white, pink, blue, all of it enveloped in this fairy-tale-like air.'" Clearly, the dark and yellowish reproduction below doesn't come close to achieving these effects. And Monet's words help to confirm the relative accuracy of the museum's photo.

Modern artwork based on a painting by Claude Monet.