In 1883, Claude Monet moved to Giverny about forty miles northwest of Paris. For the next twenty years, he devoted himself to painting and tending his gardens, which featured the Japanese footbridge in this picture. During this time Monet's style became more expressive. He piled layer upon layer of thick pigments and used increasingly more intense and idiosyncratic colors, possibly because of his failing eyesight. Surrendering any desire to record minute details, he wove tangled skeins of paint with bold strokes and, like the Symbolists and Expressionists, seemed more concerned with the mysteries of nature than with its mere appearance.