Monet's extraordinary water lilies
He devoted 30 years to them!
Back in the late 90s, when I was a wee lass in college, I spent a month in Paris with a class led by my French teacher and her artist husband. Both of them *loved* Paris and I did too, even though I had only been there once.
One of the highlights was going to Claude Monet’s home in Giverny, about an hour outside of Paris by train. There you can see the inspiration for some of his most famous works - the Water Lilies series.
Monet was born in Paris in 1859 and moved to Giverny, in Normandy, in 1883. At first he rented his home, but later purchased it with money he earned from the success of his paintings. It housed his family that included his second wife and their eight (combined) children, plus ample space for him to do his work.
He pretty much created his famous gardens from scratch. He diverted water to make a pond, brought in a Japanese footbridge, and imported water lilies from far flung places. He also had apple trees, weeping willows, bamboo trees and exotic flowers planted on his property. These would serve as his muse for his famous works.
Read more information about his home and gardens here (with really cool photos of inside the house).
For 30 years, Claude Monet focused primarily on painting scenes from his gardens. By then he already experienced commercial success — he was known for painting multiple versions of the cathedral in Rouen, France, and various scenes from London, Paris and Venice. His reputation allowed him the time and space to work at his own pace.
If you can’t manage to go all the way out to Giverny, you can see his gorgeous tableaux right in Paris, at the Orangerie museum. It’s just at the corner of the Jardin des Tuileries. I like this museum because it’s not a gigantic, scarily huge museum like the Louvre — you can spend an hour in the Orangerie and leave feeling satisfied.
Altogether Claude Monet created more than 250 paintings of his gardens. In 1918, he gave eight of his Water Lilies — measuring 14 feet wide — to France as a symbol of peace to mark the armistice in 1918.
Before his death in 1926, he was preparing to have the eight paintings installed at the Orangerie museum. Even though he didn’t live to see it, he helped come up with the concept of curved walls where the paintings are hung to maximize the effect of the Water Lilies.
I discovered in my research that Monet suffered from cataracts. Interestingly (and I’m sure painfully), it altered his use of color in some of his paintings. But that certainly did nothing to his reputation as a great Impressionist artist.
Sources: Musee Orangerie website (in English): musee-orangerie.fr
(Before I let you go, I have a true story: when I moved to Paris in 2022 as a student, I knew France was great about giving student discounts. I tested this for the first time, asking for the discount at the ticket kiosk in the Orangerie, and the man asked, “How old are you?” It turns out the discount is only for those 26 or under. So I replied - in French - “you’re mean” and he laughed.)
Beautiful post and photos! Thank you for bringing me back to the unique charm of Giverny :)
really enjoy your notes from France, usually at the "pants" building in Beijing 😀