“Other painters paint a bridge, a house, a boat….I want to paint the air that surrounds the bridge, the house, the boat – the beauty of the light in which they exist.” Claude Monet, 1895
Despite many viewings of French Impressionist Claude Monet’s Nymphéas (water lilies) at Musee de L’Orangerie in Paris, I’d never been to the artist’s famous house and gardens at Giverny where this monumental series of paintings was created. I visited during the opening week in April and while the garden wasn’t in its full glory, it was splendid with beautiful tulips, daffodils, narcissi and irises and was far less crowded than it would have been later in the season. At about an hour away from Paris, it’s an easy day trip and over 600,000 visitors make the journey every year between April and October.
Claude Monet was looking for a country retreat that wasn’t too far from Paris and when he spotted the house at Giverny from a train window he immediately bought it from the proceeds of two of his paintings. By this stage in his life, Monet was successful and affluent. He was the first in the village to have electricity and he employed a team of gardeners, some of whom were hired to wipe dust off the roses.
Monet lived at Giverny for the last forty-three years of his life, from 1883 to 1926 and while there, he created a house and gardens that were an extension of his artwork. The colors of the outside and inside of the house were meant to blend into the gardens. The house remains as it was when Monet lived there with the original furniture and the decor the same. The pink color of the exterior walls and the green of the shutters would have been a marked contrast to the traditional grey shutters of his time.
Monet added a gallery in front of the house, a pergola covered with climbing roses and grew a virginia creeper on the facade: he wanted the house to blend with the garden. The dining room is bright yellow and the salon his favorite color, blue. Another room is packed with replicas of Japanese woodblock prints from the 18th and 19th centuries, a major influence on Monet and his fellow impressionist artists. Monet’s studio is covered with copies of many of his well-known paintings.
There are two parts to Monet’s garden: a flower garden called Clos Normand in front of the house and a Japanese inspired water garden on the other side of the road. It is this water garden with its lily pads and green bridge that can be seen in his water lily paintings. Monet did employ a team of gardeners but he had a true passion for gardening as well as for colors and he conceived both his flower garden and water garden as true works of art. Today, the Claude Monet Foundation owned by the “Académie des Beaux Arts” maintains Monet’s Giverny and ensures that it “remains a living place” with gardeners employed to preserve and renew the gardens in line with Monet’s vision.
Monet was fascinated by the play of light and reflections of clouds on water and in 1897, he started to paint the water lilies, a series of almost 300 oil paintings, over 40 of which were in large format. The final great panels were donated by Monet to the French State in 1922 and have been on display at the Musée de l’Orangerie since 1927.
If you’re doing a Paris-London trip this spring or summer, be sure to also visit the new blockbuster Monet exhibition just opened in London this month at the National Gallery (runs until 29 July 2018). Monet & Architecture showcases over 75 paintings by Monet spanning his entire long career. About a quarter of the paintings in the exhibition come from private collections and have been rarely exhibited publicly, some never. While Monet is best known for the water lily series, he made many paintings of European bridges and buildings and this show focuses on architecture and often highlights the progress of modernity. Highlights include Thames below Westminster, Quai du Louvre and Boulevard des Capucines, Paris as well as a rarely seen painting of the beach at Trouville from a private collection.
