Claude Monet begins spending most of his…

Claude Monet begins spending most of his time at or near Giverny after his travels of the 1880s, concentrating on one series after another.

He buys additional property there, begins his Haystack series, and works also on his Poplar series on the Epte.

Willard "Willy" Metcalf, thirty-two in 1890, had visited and summered four times at Giverny, home to Monet since 1883.

Although Metcalf knew the older French painter, it is the rustic village itself that had drawn the young American to the area.

The calm structure of Giverny's plowed fields, stone-walled roads, and tile-roofed farmhouses fascinate many painters.

In Metcalf's oil Midsummer Twilight (c. 1890; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), several building eaves and crop lines point toward the shimmering orb of a full moon rising through rosy clouds over the eastern horizon.

Sunset imparts a yellow warmth to the stuccoed walls, while the complementary color of violet marks the lengthening shadows of late afternoon.

The deep blue-greens of the foreground bushes similarly balance and contrast with the red-oranges of the terra-cotta roofs.