13. The Texture of Wartime Monet

Madame, you are standing too close to the paintings.

Nympheas, by Claude Monet. Oil on canvas. Musée de l’Orangerie. 1914-1926.

On my last day in Paris before this trip to the American Southwest, on the brink of a war in Europe, I decided to go visit Monet’s water lilies at the Musée de l’Orangerie. I hadn’t been to see them in a few years, since 2018 or 2019 maybe, some time before the pandemic. I like th…