SUSAN STEIN: Beset with financial problems, unable to cope with unpaid bills or imminent fatherhood, the twenty-six-year-old Monet left Paris and his pregnant mistress behind to spend the summer of 1867 at his family's home at the resort town of Sainte-Adresse on the Normandy coast.

KEITH CHRISTIANSEN: It was there that he painted this wonderful sunlit scene. Monet apparently recruited family members as models: his father, shown seated, in a Panama hat; two cousins; and an uncle. The painting projects an air of domestic tranquility quite at odds with Monet’s dire straits. And it betrays not a hint of the strained family relations caused by his liaison with his model and future wife, Camille.

SUSAN STEIN: His sunny optimism, enormous talent, and ambition prevail.

Monet's iconic scene of modern life was considered quite daring for the time. The artist surveyed the scene from above, probably the second-floor window of his father's house, adopting a bird's-eye perspective, bold high-keyed colors, split perspective, and brilliant contrasts of yellow sunlight against blue-gray shadow, for one.

By choosing an elevated vantage point and composing his picture within horizontal bands of relatively similar size—terrace, sea, and sky—Monet emphasized the two-dimensionality of the painting. The flags, especially the tricolor on the right, may be a witty analogy to the composition.