La Seine à Lavacourt, 1880

Oil on canvas

Dallas Museum of Art

Munger Fund, 1938.4.M

La Seine à Lavacourt or The Seine at Lavacourt

La Seine à Lavacourt is a very realistic and detailed landscape of the town of Lavacourt. Monet painted this piece in response to critics who said his paintings did not seem finished. Monet submitted this painting to the Salon, an official exhibition that had not been displaying the Impressionists work on the grounds that they did not seem detailed enough and portrayed real life scenes, not images of the refined upper class or pictures of ancient or historical events. Monet and the rest of the Impressionists had been having their own art shows. Monet's move back to the Salon made the other Impressionists not accept Monet as part of the Impressionist group. The last time he showed with the Impressionists was in 1882. People have speculated that Monet returned to the Salon because of disagreements among the Impressionists over new recruits. Monet was following his friend Pierre-Auguste Renior who had submitted paintings to the Salon in 1878 and 1879.

Of the two paintings submitted by Monet to the Salon in 1880, only the very detailed Lavacourtwas accepted, and the other, more loosely painted Glaçons was rejected.