They are among the greatest wonders of 20th century art: eight vast, sensual and semi-abstract paintings of a water-lily pond at different times of day.

Claude Monet’s Nympheas, displayed as he stipulated in two oval rooms at the Orangerie in Paris, are indisputably the work of a visionary painter.

But scientific research has shown for the first time how the failing state of Monet’s eyesight may have influenced the work directly.

Monet learnt in 1912 that he had cataracts in both eyes, and two years later he told a friend: “I no longer saw colours with the same intensity. The reds seemed muddy to me, the pinks insipid and the intermediate colours and lower tones escaped me completely.”

That same year he began work on the Nympheas (a French word for lilies).

He continued to paint as his eyesight worsened, only agreeing to have the cataract in his right eye surgically removed in 1923. He died three years later, at the age of 86, soon after he finished the Nympheas.

Art experts and scientists have long speculated about the extent to which his fading sight informed the development of a bolder style towards the end of his career, one which was more abstract and less subtle in its use of colour than in his earlier Impressionist masterpieces.

Researchers at Stanford University in California have now attempted to reconstruct the way that Monet saw the world, using historical documentation, medical knowledge and modern Photoshop computer software.

Their blurred images of well-known works by Monet and Edgar Degas, who suffered from retinal disease, have been published in the Archives of Ophthalmology journal.

A detailed early painting that Monet made of the lily pond in his beloved garden at Giverny, done in 1899 before his cataracts developed, was compared with a contemporary photograph of the same view.

The photograph was then rendered as Monet might have seen it in 1922, when his opthal-molagist recorded the vision in his left, better, eye at 20/200.

The result is an indistinct fog of dark yellows and greens.

Professor Michael Marmor, the art-loving opthalmologist who led the team, said: “Monet may have used strong colours in these paintings because he was using them from memory or because he was overcompensating for his yellow vision by adding more blue.

“There’s no documentary evidence, from interviews and conversations with Degas or Monet, that either of them were trying to be abstract. In fact, they both derided the developing abstraction in art.

“I think it’s pretty clear [that Monet] was not necessarily intending a new level of abstraction.”

Chris Riopelle, curator of 19th century paintings at the National Gallery, said: “There has always been a great mystery behind Monet and how much influence his eyesight problems had on his work. This is a great insight.

“However, it does not entirely answer the questions. After surgery, Monet’s style did not alter radically.”

Editor's choice

• The top 10 fan versus band scuffles
• Mamma Mia! The first review
• Times critics' 20 best films for kids