Focus on this artwork and explain the Series background.
The stacks depicted in the series are commonly referred to in English as hay, wheat or grain-stacks. In reality they stored sheafs of grain primarily for bread—so wheat [or possibly barley or oats]—and not hay, an animal food. The 10-to-20-foot (3.0 to 6.1 m) stacks were a way of keeping the sheafs dry until the grain could be separated from the stalks by threshing. The local method of storing and drying unthreshed-grains was to use straw, or sometimes hay, as a thatched 'roof' for the stack, shielding the wheat, barley or oats from the elements until, once dry-enough, they could be threshed. The threshing machines then traveled from village to village. Thus, although the grain was harvested and the stacks were built by July, it often took until the following spring or even later—so through all the light and atmosphere changes of summer, autumn, winter and spring—for all the stacks to be reached by the threshing-machines. Grain storage/drying-stacks like these became common throughout Europe in the 19th century and survived until the inception of combine harvesters. The shapes of stacks were regional: in Normandy, where Giverny is situated, it was common for them to be round with quite steeply-pitched thatched 'roofs'—just as Monet painted.
The stacks belonged to Monet's farmer-neighbour, Monsieur Quéruel. Noticing the way the light changed on M. Quéruel's stacks, Monet asked his stepdaughter, Blanche Hoschedé, to bring him two canvases, one for sunny and one for overcast conditions. But Monet soon found he could not catch the ever-changing light and mood on merely two canvases: as a result, his willing helper was quickly bringing as many canvases as her wheelbarrow could hold. Monet's daily routine therefore came to involve carting paints, easels and many unfinished canvases back and forth, working on whichever canvas most closely resembled the scene of the moment as the conditions and light fluctuated. Although he began painting the stacks en plein air, Monet later revised his initial impressions in his studio, both to generate contrast and to preserve the harmony within the series.Monet produced numerous Haystacks paintings. He painted five paintings (Wildenstein Index Numbers 1213–1217) with stacks as his primary subject during the 1888 harvest. His earlier landscapes (Wildenstein Index Number 900–995, 1073) had included stacks [and also some more-accurately described hayricks: that is smaller piles of hay for animal-feed] in an ancillary manner. The general consensus is that only the canvases produced using the 1890 harvest (Wildenstein Index Number 1266–1290) comprise the Haystacks series proper. However some commentators include additional paintings when referencing this series. For example, the Hill-Stead Museum talk of their two stack paintings even though one is from the 'proper' 1890 harvest, the other from the 1888 harvest.Monet's Haystacks series is one of his earliest to rely on repetition to illustrate nuances in his perception across natural variations such as times of day, seasons, and types of weather.  For Monet, the concept of producing and exhibiting a series of paintings related by subject and vantage point began in 1889, with at least ten paintings done at the Valley of the Creuse, and subsequently shown at the Galerie Georges Petit. This interest in the serial motif would continue for the rest of his career.
paint Giverny threshing Georges Petit barley Normandy painting wheelbarrow seasons landscapes light canvas hay threshing machine Hill-Stead Museum sheaf Wildenstein Index Number weather Galerie en plein air series oats Europe Hay atmosphere motif wheat easel combine harvesters