Monet a Giverny

Gardening has a French soul --at its best, it combines the artistic use of colors and textures with the terroir. And Claude Monet was a master gardener! Giverny was Monet's home for more than 40 years, and the gardens were the subject of many of his most famous paintings. We left the heat of Paris behind on Wednesday, and drove to Giverny --less than 40 miles from Paris-- to see the gardens in their full summer bloom (I would like to see them in every season, but we will need to come back during a spring again!).
Monet and his "families", his close family friend and patron, Alice Hoschede and her 6 children, moved into the house to take care of Monet and his young children (his first wife Camille died in 1879 when he was 39 years old). Alice and Monet were married in 1892 a year after the death of Alice's husband Ernest. ( Les familles recomposees are not a new French phenomenon and the tradition continues --the number of marriages is about half of what it was in 1950 for a population that is now 60 million as opposed to 40 million.)
The house is a rambling, old house to which Monet added his studios and kitchen in place of the old barns which were connected to the house. The dining room is painted in two tones of yellow and overlooks the terrace and the gardens. As they had a large family and many guests, the dining room table easily accommodates 15! The kitchen is tiled with blue and white patterned tiles and painted in shades of blue... his collection of copper pans is hung, "lovingly polished by the staff" as the guidebook explains! These are rooms of people who love to cook and eat --it's France and it's about the food! (The guidebook explains that Monet loved good food and wine and also had some of his own recipes.)


These views are of the front of the house. The flower gardens were established where there once was an orchard (the house had been named Le Pressoir --the Fruit Press House), and the main pathway to the house from the road below was an allee of cypress and spruce trees. Monet had the orchard and the trees removed, and he created a rambling, natural garden that is not in the French style of closely trimmed trees and shrubs and a precise pattern of planted flowers. He installed large arches as rose arbors to span this straight pathway where the cypress and spruce had been.


Although the pathways remain straight, they are bordered by plants like these nasturtiums (les capucines (f) en francais) which are climbers and wanderers and do not do straight lines! These summer gardens are a profusion of flowering annuals and perennials (although most of the perennials are spring flowering and thus, display foliage in August). There are also dahlias of many hues and sizes. The flowers include (a short list only!) cleomes, geraniums, zinnias, gladiolus (and they are NOT all orange!), cosmos, salvias of many colors, black-eyed susans, pinks, fuchsias, verbena, and on and on.....



And so you may ask....where are the waterlilies???
In 1893, Monet purchased the land across the street and rail road line from his house along a small tributary of the Epte River, the Ru. He had to go through the process of the then environmental permitting to change the course of the Ru and add dams to create the pond. All of this is his creation --the pond, the Japanese bridges, the plantings. He chose the bamboos, wisterias, aganapathes, marsh marigolds --and the waterlilies for their colors and textures. Structure is provided by the weeping willows, hydrangeas, azaleas and other shrubs and small flowering trees. This entire pond area looks natural, but as any gardeners know, there is ordered chaos here --all controlled with loppers and pruning shears! (Monet kept small boats tied up for both him and his gardeners for gazing --and grazing!)






It may be difficult to see in these small photos, but the floating waterlilies -les nympheas- lie flat and do not have a reflection --and as they float on the surface, they break up both the reflections and the texture and perception of depth on the surface of the pond. Quite amazing --but from the master of light, what less could be expected...
"Apart from painting and gardening, I'm not good at anything." Monet.

Giverny was opened by the Claude Monet Foundation in 1980 after being "refurbished". The estate was given to the Academy of Beaux Arts in 1966 after his son Michael was killed in a car accident. The house had not been maintained since 1947 when Monet's daughter-in-law Blanche (Alice's daughter who had married Monet's other son, John, who died in 1914) passed away. The paintings in the house were given to the Marmottan-Monet museum in Paris (a must see!)



The largest Les Nympheas went to the Orangerie in 1927 after his death. He was persuaded by his friend George Clemenceau to give eight of them to France (he had offered two as a gift to celebrate the end of WW I) to be installed in the oval shaped rooms specifically designed for them in the Orangerie --but he would not deliver them while he was alive!



The restoration (there were plants growing through the walls in the studios) was funded by various groups within France --the Institut de France, the region of Eure, and other French groups and individuals. There were many American benefactors as well, including the American Ambassador Walter Annenberg, who paid for the access to the waterlily pond under the road that separates the property.

On June 25, 2008, one group of four of Monet's large waterlilies paintings, Le Bassin aux Nympheas, sold for more that $80 million to an anonymous private collector. This same painting was purchased by the sellers for $320,000 in 1971. The previous highest price for a Monet was in April, 2008. The Railway Bridge at Argenteuil sold for more than $41 million to another anonymous buyer (reportedly the Nahmad family --look them up on the web-- it is another world). In 1868, Monet attempted suicide by throwing himself into the Seine, distraught over his financial situation. One has to wonder, would any of these buyers have supported him then? And do any of these buyers support young artists now? And for all this money, who gets to see these works? Not any grubby gardeners.