Monet, an Impressionist landscape painter, lived in Argenteuil, a town northwest of Paris, from 1871 to 1878, repeatedly painting scenes along the Seine, which flows by the town. In this painting, the Ile Marante is dimly visible on the left. In the background, we see not the chateau but a factory smokestack: the area is becoming modernized. Between December 1872 and February 1873, the Seine rose due to snow melting, and Argenteuil was flooded. The path that should be on the left of the trees is under water. The birds in flight above the river give this work, painted in dark colors, an amplified sense of tension and dynamism.