'The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.' - Claude Monet. Monet, the founder of impressionist painting, was born #OnThisDay in 1840. 🍃 In the summer of 1891, Monet learned that a row of poplar trees on the river Epte, near to his home at Giverny, were to be cut down. Desperate to capture their beauty, Monet paid for them to be left standing long enough to paint them. During this time he created twenty-three paintings of this scene, and exhibited a group of them together in 1892. 🚣 Monet painted the series from a flat-bottomed boat fitted with slots to hold a number of canvases. Each of the paintings depict different effects of light and different times of the day. With some of the effects only lasting a few minutes, Monet would take out the next canvas and work on that with vigorous speed and accuracy. Claude Monet, Poplars on the Epte 1891