Bain a la Grenouillere

Bathers and boaters crowd a floating cafe and jetty on the Seine at La Grenouillere, the water broken into quick, choppy dashes of light and color that capture the dazzle of sun on a moving surface. Monet painted it side by side with Renoir at this popular riverside resort, the two friends working out a new, rapid, open-air manner. Now in the Metropolitan Museum, Bain a la Grenouillere is a pivotal picture in the birth of Impressionism - leisure, water, and shimmering light seized in loose, spontaneous strokes meant to catch a fleeting moment.