La Pie

In Monet’s take on a winter landscape, a fragile magpie sits perched on a gate, ready to take flight at the hunter’s fired cue. The scene feels malleable, as if sublimating from solid to gas, and the luminous, spectrally pale colors gesture at Monet’s turn to prioritize perception over description. Send this to the person in your life who is not scared of some snow and would take to the slopes all day, despite a glare so reflective it might deter others.

Courtesy of the Musée d'Orsay