Between 1897 and 1926, Claude Monet painted roughly two hundred and fifty pictures of the water lily pond at his garden in Giverny. The series began as an observational study, slowly dissolved its bridge and bank into pure reflection, and ended in the panoramic Orangerie panels where water, sky, willow, and lily blur into a single continuous surface. How the project began, why it kept going, and the moment it stopped being a study of a pond.

The wall above the sofa breaks more living rooms than any other. Six rules — width, height, anchor, orientation, colour temperature, and framing — and the paintings that prove each one.