In the countryside, a vivid splash of poppies seems to move in a gentle breeze. Monet has made the red poppies and the green field effectively equiluminant. The position of the poppies seems uncertain. To many viewers, they appear to quiver.

If you remove the color, most of the poppies cannot be seen in the field. The poppies and field are equiluminant. As has been noted, the Impressionists painted not a landscape but the impression of a landscape. Nothing here is painted exactly; rather, everything is suggested. Monet unforgettably evokes a mood by choosing these shades of green and red. If he painted flowers of another color, the hillside would be stagnant.