“The garden is his workshop, his palette”: The Giverny estate, where Claude Monet drew inspiration. Open left menu of Giverny Monet's Garden in France

If you drive 80 km north from Paris, you can get to the picturesque town of Giverny. This village is famous for the fact that Claude Monet once lived and worked here for forty-three years. Having settled in the village in 1883, the artist became so interested in gardening that on his canvases there was almost nothing except views of his favorite garden and poppy field, which is located on the edge of the village.

At first, Monet's garden consisted only of the area adjacent to the house (about 1 hectare). Here, the first thing the artist did was carve out a gloomy alley of spruce and cypress trees. But tall stumps were left, along which climbing roses then climbed. But soon the vines grew so large that they closed and formed a vaulted flowering tunnel leading from the gate to the house.

Of course, over time, the stumps collapsed, and now the roses are supported by metal supports. This place can be seen in the Master’s paintings: the perspective of an alley, where there are lush flowers on the left, right and above, and on the path below there are their thin openwork shadows.

The artist turned the area in front of the house, which was visible from the windows, into a floral palette, mixing and matching colors. In Monet's garden, a colorful, fragrant carpet of flowers is divided by straight paths, like paints in a box.

Monet painted flowers and painted with flowers. As a truly talented person, he was both an outstanding artist and an outstanding landscape designer. He was very interested in gardening, bought special books and magazines, corresponded with nurseries, and exchanged seeds with other gardeners.

Fellow artists often visited Monet in Giverny. Matisse, Cezanne, Renoir, Pissarro and others visited here. Knowing about the owner’s passion for flowers, friends brought him plants as gifts. Thus, Monet got, for example, tree-like peonies brought from Japan.

By this time, Claude Monet became famous. This artist’s painting technique is different in that he did not mix paints.

And he placed them side by side or layered one on top of the other in separate strokes. Claude Monet's life flows calmly and pleasantly, his family and his beloved wife are nearby, paintings sell well, the artist is passionate about what he loves.

In 1993, Monet bought a plot of marshy land next to his own, but located on the other side of the railway. A small stream flowed here. At this place, the artist, with the support of local authorities, created a pond, small at first and later enlarged. Nymphs of different varieties were planted in the reservoir, and weeping willows, bamboo, irises, rhododendrons and roses were planted along the banks.

Across the pond, which has a very winding coastline, several bridges have been thrown. The most famous and largest of them is the Japanese bridge, entwined with wisteria.

Monet painted it especially often.

Monet's water garden is strikingly different from the surrounding area; it is hidden behind the trees. You can only get here through a tunnel built under the road.

Everyone who comes here involuntarily freezes, holding their breath, seeing the masterpiece created by the great artist, recognizing the plots of his world-famous paintings.

Claude Monet drew inspiration from the water garden for 20 years. Monet wrote: “...the revelation of my fabulous, wonderful pond came to me. I took the palette, and from that time on I almost never had another model.”

Here he created more than a hundred paintings. At this time, Monet began to lose his sight... It became increasingly difficult for him to distinguish and paint small details. The artist's paintings gradually change. Details and nuances are replaced by large strokes of paint that show the play of light and shadow.

But even in paintings painted in this manner, we unmistakably guess familiar plots. The cost of paintings continues to rise... Claude Monet died in his home in Giverny in 1926.

His stepdaughter Blanche looked after the garden. Unfortunately, during the Second World War the garden fell into disrepair. In 1966, the son of the artist Michel Monet donated the estate to the Academy fine arts, which immediately began restoration of first the house and then the garden. Now the estate in Giverny is visited by half a million people every year.

Claude Monet lived a long life happy life. He managed to do what he loved, combine painting and gardening, and live in abundance. He was very happy in his personal life, he loved and was loved. Monet became famous during his lifetime, which is rare for artists. And now throughout the world he remains one of the most famous and beloved artists. And we are especially pleased that this outstanding person not only great painter, but also our colleague and Teacher, Master of Landscape Art.

Giverny on the canvases of Claude Monet

Biography of Claude Monet (1840-1926)

Claude Oscar Monet's education began in the Norman city of Le Havre, where the family moved from Paris in 1845, when young Claude was only five years old. In Le Havre, his father Claude-Auguste, together with his brother-in-law Jacques Lecadre, opened a shop where they sold ship equipment and groceries, and the family settled in the suburb of Sainte-Adresse on the seashore.

Having taught himself to draw, fourteen-year-old Monet gained considerable experience by drawing amusing caricatures of the most famous people of Le Havre. These first works, filled with benevolent humor, made in pencil and charcoal, very early attracted the attention of the city's residents to Monet. U young artist a “clientele” appears, everyone wants their own caricature, and he sells them for ten to twenty francs. During this period, Monet was engaged in drawing under the guidance of student David Jacques-François Hauchard, who taught at the college where he was studying, and became acquainted with the work of landscape painter Eugene Boudin, who differs from his contemporaries in that he paints from nature. At first, Monet, like many other residents of the city, was critical of Boudin’s method, but having met the artist personally, he joined him and also began to paint in outdoors- as a result, nature fascinated him as a painter for the rest of his life.

Communication with Boudin confirms the young Monet in his determination to take up painting seriously; and for this it is best to move to the French capital, where the most significant art academies are concentrated.

Monet had an understanding aunt, and she convinced his father to allow his son to leave the family shop in Le Havre and spend a probationary year, 1859, in Paris. Having collected the savings resulting from the sale of caricatures, Monet went to Paris, having secured several letters of recommendation from collectors and art lovers who patronized Boudin and had connections in the capital with the artist Constant Troyon.

In May 1859, Monet moved to the capital and studied for some time at the Académie Suisse and communicated with Eugene Delacroix and Gustave Courbet. At the same time, the young man met Camille Pissarro and often went with him to Brassry de Martire (“Tavern of Martyrs”), where the realists, led by Courbet, gathered and where he also happened to meet Baudelaire. Monet visits the Paris Salons, visits the Louvre and writes long letters to Boudin with a detailed report. At the Salons, he has the opportunity to learn and appreciate the work of Troyon, a representative of the Barbizon school of landscape painting, which also included Corot, Rousseau and Daubigny. Monet consults with Troyon about his own painting, and the artist recommends that he enter the workshop of Thomas Couture to learn how to paint. But Monet was alien to Couture’s academic style of painting, and against Troyon’s advice, he continued to work in the workshops of such artists as Arnaud Gautier, Charles Mongino, and Charles Jacques. At this stage, Monet also became acquainted with painting from life by Daubigny, whose pronounced naturalism seemed to build a bridge from the Barbizon school to impressionism.

In the fall of 1860, Monet was drafted into military service and sent to serve in Algeria, where he spent two years. He recalls that this period of his life brought with it the discovery of new colors and lighting effects, which decisively influenced the formation of his artistic perception. At the end of his second year in Algeria, he was sent back to France due to illness. In Le Havre, Monet meets Boudin again and meets the Dutch artist Johann Jonkind, with whom they immediately become great friends. At the end of the summer, when Monet is already close to recovery, his father, fearing for his son’s health, decides to pay someone who will replace him military service, and also agrees to help in further painting studies.

In November 1862, Monet returned to Paris, where, on the advice of a relative, the academic artist Tulmush, he studied for some time in Gleyre's studio, where he met the artists Renoir, Basile and Sisley, who very soon became his close friends.

In this regard, he was greatly influenced by the work of Manet, who exhibited his “Luncheon on the Grass” at the Salon of Les Misérables in 1863. The controversy started by the press and supporters of academic art in connection with this painting, where against the backdrop of a magnificent forest a naked young woman is depicted in the company of two men, clearly belonging to modern bourgeois society by their clothes, gave food for lively discussions among young artists: Monet also accepted their participation. It was during these years, during the heated debate in the Guerbois café, that Manet, with his paintings, became a symbol of the renewal of painting and the spiritual leader of a group of artists later known as the “Impressionists.”

At the same time, Monet and his comrades in Gleyra’s workshop often painted from life in the forest of Fontainebleau, and in the summer of 1864 he traveled to Honfleur in the company of Boudin, Yonkind and Basil and settled with the latter in Saint-Simeon, a favorite place for artists.

In 1865 he exhibited for the first time at the Salon, and there were two seascapes have had modest success. Monet leaves for Chailly, where he stays at the Golden Lion Hotel and works on numerous sketches for “Luncheon on the Grass” - all variations on the theme of the famous Manet painting exhibited at the Salon of Les Misérables in 1863. Basil and Camille Doncieux, who later became his life partner, pose for the picture. The sketches arouse the keen interest of Courbet, who specially came to Chailly to follow the process of the birth of this painting, executed on location.

Gustave Courbet and caricaturist Honore Daumier were truly idols of artists far from officially recognized painting. The works of both - just remember Courbet's "The Artist's Studio" and Daumier's "Third Class Car" - shocked official circles with their realism, as well as the choice of subjects that were considered vulgar and unworthy of depiction on canvas. Both of them stood at the origins of realism - a movement that involved not only merging with nature and plein air landscape painting, but also search expressive means for the artistic embodiment of reality, where every person, regardless of social status, plays his role. It is understandable that Monet admired Courbet and studied his technique with interest, especially his use of dark backgrounds.

In Camille in Green, a full-length portrait of Monet's friend painted in 1866, the artist undoubtedly pays tribute to Courbet's painting technique. It is this work that is exhibited at the Salon of 1866 and receives favorable reviews from critics; they begin to talk about him in the press, and the echoes of his success reach Le Havre, allowing him to regain the respect of his family. During that period, the artist worked in Ville d'Avray, where he painted a large canvas “Women in the Garden” from life; one model, Camille, poses for all four female figures. This painting, purchased by Basile, was rejected by the jury of the 1867 Salon.

This time was very difficult for Monet, who was extremely strapped for money, constantly pursued by creditors and even tried to commit suicide. The artist has to constantly move from place to place, now to Le Havre, now to Sainte-Adresse, now to Paris, where he paints wonderful city landscapes. Then he travels again to Normandy, to Etretat, where he is helped by the merchant Gaudibert, who, believing in him, buys several paintings and provides him with a house in 1869 in Saint-Michel de Bougival, a village on the banks of the Seine a few kilometers to the northwest. from Paris.

Auguste Renoir often comes to visit him in Saint-Michel, and the artists begin to work together on the same subjects. At this stage, nature becomes a real object of study. Here, not far from Paris, between Chatou and Bougival, on the banks of one of the branches of the Seine, the artists find a picturesque corner, perfect for studying reflections and reflections on the water - a small restaurant and an adjacent bathhouse, a Sunday resting place for wealthy Parisians. The artist's attention is drawn primarily to fleeting effects in constantly changing nature; this orientation in itself becomes Monet’s creative credo, to which he remains faithful in subsequent years.

From their joint creative activity, the famous types of bathhouse and restaurant, known as the “Splash Pool,” are born. This painting, like the “Terrace at Sainte-Adresse” painted two years earlier, testifies to the influence on Monet’s painting of oriental art, which spread in France in the second half of the century in connection with the beginning of collecting Japanese graphics. In Japanese art, Monet and his contemporaries discovered promising new possibilities for reproducing the surrounding world in harmony with a “sense of atmosphere.”

It is on the basis of Monet's paintings that one can most fruitfully explore all the complexities of the relationship between impressionism and Japanese influence. All his life he was a passionate admirer of Japanese art. It was said that there were Japanese fans hanging on the walls of his house in Argenteuil when he lived there in the 70s; in his last home, in Giverny, there is still an extensive collection of Japanese prints collected over the years of his creativity; and in 1892 Edmond de Goncourt recorded in his diary that he often met Monet at the Galerie Bint, a center for trade in oriental works.

In Japanese woodcuts, he discovered compositional effects that are achieved by sharp foreshortening and dramatic framing of the composition. In his declining years, he told the Duke de Trevize: “What we in the West appreciated in Japanese artists was, first of all, the courage with which they framed their subjects. These people taught us a new composition. There is no doubt about it." His works indeed belong to a new type of composition. In 1867 he painted "Terrace at Sainte-Adresse", which he called his " Chinese painting with flags." This is truly a striking composition - with an overhead perspective and without any center. The wide expanse of the sea is dotted with sailboats of all sizes - about thirty of them; along with a strip of sky, divided into cloudy and cloudless parts, half of the composition is occupied by the terrace itself, on which we see a mass of bright gladioli and nasturtiums, and the variety of colors is enhanced by two slightly asymmetrically placed flags on both sides of the terrace.

The process of formation of a new artistic language should also be considered in connection with the progress of science XIX century and her latest achievements, in particular the research of scientists such as Eugene Chevreul in the field of optics and color contrasts, which became widespread in France in the second half of the century. Based on observation of the physical phenomenon of perception, scientists have established that vision is the result of the interaction of elements perceived by the eye and that the color of an object depends on the material from which it is made, the proximity of other objects and the quality of light. These principles, together with the revelations of Japanese art, have had strong influence on Monet, Renoir and all artists who prefer to paint outdoors. We see traces of these principles in the impressionist painting technique: the pure colors of the solar spectrum are applied directly to the canvas, rather than mixed on the palette.

In June 1870, the wedding of Monet and Camille Doncieux took place, which was attended by Gustave Courbet. The young move to Normandy, to Trouville, where they are caught by the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War. Monet, being a Republican, does not want to fight for the empire and, under this pretext, takes refuge in England.

In London he meets Daubigny and Pissarro, with whom he works on views of the Thames and the fogs of Hyde Park. The fog effects couldn't have been better timed. The winter of 1870-1871 in London was the worst in the entire century. The presence of fog is especially felt in Monet's views of Parliament, opened only a year earlier, Green Park, Hyde Park and London Pool. He himself loved the London fog, as he admitted to Rene Gimpel: “I like London more than the English countryside. Yes, I love London. It is like a mass, like an ensemble, and yet so simple. My favorite is the London fog. How were nineteenth-century English artists able to paint their houses brick by brick? In their paintings they even depicted bricks that they could not even see. I only love London in winter. In summer the city is beautiful with its parks, but this cannot be compared with winter and winter fogs: without fog London would not be a beautiful city. The fog gives it an amazing scale. Under its mysterious cover, monotonous, massive blocks become grandiose.” Subsequently, he would come to London several times and paint more London landscapes than any of the famous artists.

In London, both Monet and Pissarro worked a lot. Years later (in 1906), Pissarro wrote to the English critic Wynford Dew-Hurst (at that time working on a book about the Impressionists): “Monet and I were fascinated by the London landscape. Monet worked in parks, and I, living in Lower Norwood, then a charming suburb, worked on the effects of fog, snow and spring. We painted from life. We also visited museums. Of course, we were impressed by the watercolors and paintings of Turner and Constable, the canvases of Old Crome. We admired Gainsborough, Lawrence, Reynolds and others, but we were especially struck by the landscape painters who shared our views on plein air, light and fleeting effects. Among contemporary artists We were interested in Watts and Rossetti.

Daubigny introduces Monet to the French art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. While living in London, Durand-Ruel opened a gallery on Bond Street. This meeting turned out to be very important, since it was Durand-Ruel who treated the work of Monet and other artists of the future impressionist group with confidence and interest, and helped them in organizing exhibitions and selling paintings. With the exception of the second exhibition, in 1871, Durand-Ruel represented the Impressionists at all exhibitions of the Society French artists. Works by Pissarro and Monet were often exhibited, and the prices asked for them indicated how Durand-Ruel himself valued them. At the exhibition in 1872, Pissarro's views of Norwood and Sydenham were priced at 25 guineas, and at next year Monet's painting "The Houses of Parliament" sold for 30 guineas.

Monet and Pissarro submitted their work to the Royal Academy's summer exhibition, but, as Pissarro sadly noted, "of course we were rejected." It must have been thanks to Durand-Ruel that their paintings were exhibited in the French section of the International Exhibition at South Kensington in 1871, but despite much commentary on the exhibition in the press, they went unnoticed.

In 1871, Monet learned of his father's death and left for France. On the way, he visits Holland, where, amazed by the splendor of the landscape, he stops for a while and paints several paintings of windmills reflected in the serene waters of the canals.

Thanks to Manet, with whom he now has a strong friendship, he finds himself a house with a garden in Argenteuil on the banks of the Seine, where he can grow flowers, which over time have become real passion artist.

Renoir often came to him: at that time they became very close, their joint painting experience influenced not only the development of their individual style of painting, but also the formation of impressionism as a whole. The summer of 1873 turned out to be luxurious. They often painted the same landscapes, achieving amazing light and color effects with small, pulsating strokes, as if applied to the canvas from a spray bottle. Never again will their work be so similar. In 1913, when two of their works on the same subject - ducks swimming in a pond - were exhibited at the Durand-Ruel gallery, neither of them could identify their painting. In the garden of Monet's house in Argenteuil, they painted each other while they worked. Renoir depicted his friend against a backdrop of masses of multi-colored dahlias, the bright tones of which are enhanced by the yellow and gray of the houses in the background. The houses are also set off by the glow of light clouds, barely touched by the yellow light of the evening sun. Monet conveyed this idyllic period of their joint fascination with light and color effects with particular brilliance in a painting depicting the facade of his house: Camille standing in the doorway and the small figure of Jean on the landing, wearing a straw hat with a hoop in his hand. Like Renoir's painting, it is painted with light, reverent strokes, but there is a sharp difference between the detailed foliage and the almost cursory treatment of other details: the figure of Camille and the blue flower pots placed in front of the house.

That summer was extremely fruitful for both artists, and the subsequent winter was no less fruitful for Monet. Never before had they been seized by such a strong need to express artistic means what they saw in this moment, transform the reality of your visual experience into bright, pure colors.

At that time, there was significant improvement and financial situation artist: the father's inheritance and the dowry of Camille's wife provide Monet's family with some wealth. As before, he continues to travel to Normandy from time to time.

In 1872, in Le Havre, Monet painted “Impression. Sunrise" - a view of the port of Le Havre, later presented at the first exhibition of the Impressionists. Here the artist, apparently, has finally freed himself from the generally accepted idea of the image object as a certain volume and devoted himself entirely to conveying the momentary state of the atmosphere in blue and pink-orange tones. In fact, everything seems to become intangible: the Le Havre pier and the ships merge with the streaks in the sky and the reflection in the water, and the silhouettes of fishermen and boats in the foreground are just dark spots made with a few intense strokes. Refusal academic technology, plein air painting and the choice of unusual subjects were met with hostility by the critics of the time. Louis Leroy, the author of a furious article that appeared in the magazine "Charivari", for the first time, in connection with this particular painting, used the term "impressionism" as a definition of a new movement in painting.

But who are these “selected and discerning connoisseurs” who buy the works of the Impressionists? The first was the Italian Count Armand Doria (1824-1896), whose features and manners, according to his friend Degas, resembled Tintoretto. At the exhibition, he bought Cezanne’s “House of the Hanged Man” for 300 francs. He remained a constant patron of Renoir: after his death, when the collection was sold, it contained ten Renoir paintings. "Impression. Sunrise" was bought by Georges de Bellio, a homeopathic doctor originally from Romania; Pissarro continually turned to him for advice when his children were ill, or with a request to buy a painting when he was in need. Monet constantly turned to him for help, in particular in the following letter: “It is impossible to imagine how unhappy I am. They can come to describe my things at any moment. And this was just at the time when I had hope of improving my affairs. Thrown out onto the street, without any means, I will agree to find any job that comes along. This will be a terrible blow. I don't even want to think about this. I'm making one last try. If I had 500 francs, I would be saved. I have 25 paintings left. For this amount I am ready to give them to you. By taking these paintings, you will save them.” De Bellio also bought eight paintings from Renoir, as well as several canvases from Sisley, Morisot, Pissarro and Degas.

Monet also had another wealthy patron - Louis-Joachim Gaudiber (1812-1878), a Le Havre businessman and amateur artist who lived in a newly built castle in Montivier. In 1868, he bought several of the artist’s paintings from creditors, and in the same year, and subsequently, he paid Monet’s maintenance. He also ordered him several portraits of his family members. Another local tycoon, Oscar Schmitz, also bought Monet’s paintings. Originally from Switzerland, he ran a large cotton enterprise in Le Havre. But the most significant of Monet’s patrons of the arts in the first half of his life was Ernest Goschede (1838-1890), with whom his life line later turned out to be closely connected. This director of one of the large department stores that arose in Paris during the Second Empire lived in Maugeron, in an imposing Renaissance mansion. There he kept a collection of paintings that included six works by Manet, thirteen by Sisley, nine by Pissarro, six by Degas and no less than sixteen works by Monet, to whom he commissioned a series of decorative paintings for his home in 1876.

Having traveled to Holland again, Monet returned to Argenteuil. There Monet meets the artist and collector Gustave Caillebotte, they become great friends. In Argenteuil, Monet, following the example of Daubigny, equipped a floating workshop to paint directly on the Seine. He remains passionate about water reflections and, working with Renoir, Sisley and Manet, develops and refines a technique that allows him to capture light effects faster than the lighting changes. On April 24, 1874, an exhibition of the Anonymous Society of Artists, Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers opens in the studio of the photographer Nadar on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris; Monet, Degas, Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, Renoir, Pissarro and many other artists of different stylistic trends exhibited there, united by a passionate desire to dissociate themselves from the official painting presented at the Salons. The exhibition was criticized in the press, and the public reacted negatively to it; the exhibited works, in particular the paintings of a group of artists close to Monet, were too new and incomprehensible for fans of academic painting, which was always created in the workshop and assumed that art is nothing more than a desire for idealization, improvement of reality in the name of the canons of classical culture.

The second exhibition of the group, organized in the Durand-Ruel workshop in 1876, also did not meet with critical understanding. Monet then exhibited eighteen of his works, including the painting “Japanese Woman”. Emile Zola, who always sympathized with the Impressionists, after this exhibition recognized Monet as the undisputed leader of the group. After the failure of the exhibition, it was possible to sell paintings with the greatest difficulty, prices were extremely low, and for Monet a period of financial difficulties began again. In the summer, returning to Argenteuil, he met the financier and collector Ernest Gauchedet.

Late autumn Monet returns to Paris with the desire to paint views winter city through a veil of fog and decides to make the Saint-Lazare train station his object. With the permission of the director of the railways, he settles down at the station and works all day long, as a result of which he creates half a dozen canvases, subsequently acquired by the merchant Paul Durand-Ruel.

Meanwhile, exhibitions of a group of artists now known as the Impressionists are held quite regularly. The third took place in 1877, the fourth in 1879, but the public remains hostile to this direction, and the financial situation of Monet, again besieged by creditors, seems hopeless. It is because of this that he is forced to move his family from Argenteuil to Vétheuil, where he lives with the Goschede couple and paints several magnificent landscapes with views of the surrounding area.

In 1879, Camilla, after a long illness, died at the age of only thirty-two. “This morning, at half past ten, after unbearable suffering, my poor wife calmed down. I am in a terribly depressed state, completely alone with my unhappy children. I am writing to you with a request to do me one more favor: could you buy back from Mont des Pitiés (a Parisian city pawnshop) the medallion for which I am sending you a deposit receipt. This thing was dear to my wife, and, saying goodbye to her, I would like to put this medallion around her neck,” Monet wrote to his benefactor, Georges de Bellio.

In 1879, Monet painted a beautiful portrait of his beloved woman. A year later, Monet sent two paintings to the Salon, but only one of them was accepted by the jury. This is the last official exhibition in which Monet takes part.

In June of the same year, an exhibition of eighteen paintings by Monet opened in the hall of the magazine Vi Modern (Modern Life), owned by the publisher and collector Georges Charpentier. It brings the artist long-awaited success in the press. And the sale of paintings from this exhibition allows Monet to improve his financial situation.

He eventually achieved the point that he could do whatever he wanted without thinking about selling his paintings. Since his solo exhibition with Georges Petit in 1880, his circle of patrons has expanded. His income from Durand-Ruel in 1881 was 20 thousand francs; In addition, he received profit from selling his works privately and through other dealers.

He goes to write in Fécamp, in Normandy, where he is attracted by nature, the sea and special atmosphere of this land. There he works, living sometimes in Dieppe, sometimes in Pourville, sometimes in Etretat, and creates whole line magnificent landscapes.

Meanwhile, certain changes were taking place in the impressionist group and a split was emerging. Renoir did not participate in the fourth exhibition of the Impressionists already in 1878, believing that he should try to return to the official path, and therefore exhibit his works at the Salon. Monet himself tried to do the same thing in 1880, and in 1881 he did not take part in the sixth exhibition of the group, but did participate in the seventh, held in 1882.

In 1883, Manet died, his death symbolically coinciding with the collapse of the group. In 1886, the eighth and last exhibition of the Impressionists officially took place, but Renoir, Monet, and Sisley did not participate in it; but Georges Seurat and Paul Signac made themselves known. representatives new trend- the so-called pointillism. During this period, Monet, who in 1883 moved with the Goschede family to the small town of Giverny, travels to Italy, to Bordighera, where he is amazed by the splendor of light, and participates in exhibitions organized in Paris by the dealer Georges Petit. His trips to Normandy and Etretat do not stop either; there he meets Guy de Maupassant. In 1888, Monet works in Antibes. Thanks to the interest of Theo Van Gogh - the owner of the gallery and the artist's brother - he managed to exhibit in two Parisian galleries with restrained support from critics.

The following year, Monet finally achieves real and lasting success: at the Petit Gallery, simultaneously with an exhibition of works by the sculptor Auguste Rodin, a retrospective exhibition of Monet is organized, which presents one hundred and forty-five of his works from 1864 to 1889. Monet becomes a famous and respected painter.

After the exhibition organized in 1886 by Durand-Ruel in New York, Americans became interested in Monet's works. The result was excellent. In 1887, Monet's total income reached 44 thousand, and in 1891 Durand-Ruel and the Bousso and Valadon company brought him about 100 thousand francs. In the period from 1898 to 1912, his income fluctuated around the figure of 200 thousand.

The prosperity he so desperately dreamed of in his youth was finally achieved, and he took full advantage of it, creating for himself a citadel of economic and mental peace. Never before in the history of art has the name of an artist been so closely associated with his home. This citadel also had physical parameters. In 1883, he began renting a house in Giverny from a Norman landowner (the owner himself moved to live in the village of Verneuil), and Monet lived in this house for forty-three years, until his death in 1926. For the world of art, the house and garden in Giverny, then and to this day, have the same significance as Assisi for the followers of St. Francis. Invariably surrounded by a noisy crowd of adopted children and the cares of a loving but grumpy wife, Monet maintained relationships with a huge circle of friends: artists and writers.

Monet, unlike other impressionists, was an avid traveler. He traveled to Norway, where his adopted son Jacques lived; made trips to Venice, Antibes, Holland, Switzerland, and London several times. In France he visited Petite Dal on the Norman coast, where his brother had his home; Belle-Ile, Noirmoutier, Creuse Valley in the Massif Central; finally Rouen, where he spent several days. From all these places he brought a pile of sketches, which he completed in Giverny. He traveled to Paris quite often - fortunately it was not far away: either to the theater or to the Opera, where he listened with pleasure to “Boris Godunov”, and later admired Diaghilev’s Russian ballet, which he highly valued. He also closely followed the ongoing exhibitions, especially those involving Van Gon, Seurat, Gauguin, as well as Vuillard and Bonnard, who came to see him in Giverny. Monet read a lot, especially being carried away by Michelet’s huge “History of France,” which he knew from childhood and fueled strong feeling patriotism in many of his works. He also diligently read modern authors: Flaubert, Ibsen, Goncourt, Mallarmé, Tolstoy and Ruskin. He kept a substantial collection of books on gardening.

Monet spent a lot of work on his surroundings, turning a dilapidated Norman house into perfect place life. Julie Manet, daughter of Berthe Morisot and Eugene Manet, who visited there in 1893, shortly after some alterations undertaken by Monet, wrote down her impressions in her charming diary: “Since our last trip to Giverny, the house has changed noticeably. Above the workshop, Mr. Monet built himself a bedroom with large windows and doors, with resinous pine parquet. There are many paintings hanging in this room, including “Isabelle Combing Her Hair,” “Gabriel at the Basin,” “Cocotte in a Hat,” a pastel of Maman, a pastel of Uncle Edward, a very attractive nude by Mr. Renoir, paintings by Pissarro, etc.

But the garden seemed even more amazing: it not only expressed Monet’s personality, but was also an attraction in itself. Monet lived almost his entire life in houses with a garden, both in Argenteuil and Veteil, and certainly captured them in his paintings. He was encouraged to take up gardening by Caillebotte, who had an amazing garden in Petit Genvillet and who maintained correspondence with him via special issues. Those were fertile times for gardeners. New plants were imported to Europe from America and the Far East. In the 1880s, those without access to nurseries had a new option - ordering seeds by mail: this new business began to boom. Monet greedily collected seed catalogs, and “arranged” his gardens like a painting. His notes made in Argenteuil provide, for example, a snapshot of the distribution of colors for seven rows of roses: lilac, white, red, violet, yellow, cream, pink.

Arriving for the first time in Giverny, he saw at the house just an ordinary vegetable garden, typical of a French village. Monet immediately began to remake it: first of all, he gave it geometricity by planting specific “garden” flowers: marshmallows, dahlias, roses, nasturtiums, gladioli; he planted them in such an order that their flowering continued practically all year round. The garden occupied about two acres, and part of it was located on the other side of the road. There was a small pond nearby; Monet bought it along with the surrounding land in 1893. Having received permission from the local authorities, he converted it into a water garden, letting water from the nearby Ept River flow into it through sluices. Around the pond he planted flowers and shrubs: some of local origin - raspberries, peonies, hollies, poplars; partly exotic plants - Japanese cherry, pink and white anemones. The two gardens were deliberately opposed to each other. The one that was attached to the house retained a traditional French appearance: with alleys entwined with creeping plants; paths running at right angles to each other, with steps leading from one part of the garden to another. The garden that lay across the road and around the pond was deliberately exotic and romantic. When planning it, Monet followed the advice of a Japanese gardener who stayed for some time in Giverny: among the modest, familiar vegetation here, Chinese ginkgos, Japanese fruit trees, bamboos, and a Japanese bridge stood out, as if migrated here from an engraving by Hokusai. Water lilies floated in the pond, and the garden was dotted with a labyrinth of winding and intersecting paths.

“My most beautiful work is my garden,” said Monet. And his contemporaries agreed with him. Proust described this garden very accurately: “This is not the garden of an old florist, but rather a colorist’s garden, if I can call it that, a garden where the collection of flowers is not a creation of nature, since they are planted in such a way that only flowers of harmonious shades will bloom at the same time.” , creating an endless field of blue or pink.”

Octave Mirbeau, a writer and critic who never skimped on epithets, gives this estate a complete description: “In spring, against the background of flowering fruit trees, irises raise their curling petals, decorated with white, pink, purple, yellow and blue frills with brown stripes and purple spots. In the summer, nasturtiums of various shades and California poppies the color of saffron fall in dazzling clusters on both sides of the sandy path. Amazing magical fairy-tale poppies grow in wide flower beds, choking the fading irises. Amazing combination of colors, many pale shades; a magnificent symphony of white, pink, yellow, purple flowers with a shot of light flesh tones, against the background of which orange ones explode, splashes of copper flame splash out, red spots bleed and sparkle, purple spots rage, tongues of black and purple fire burst out.”

Monet said that he spent on the garden most income. But this is only a modest exaggeration. He kept a gardener and five workers, and himself was constantly engaged in work to improve and expand the garden.

Applying to the prefecture for permission to rebuild the pond, Monet wrote that this was necessary “for the sake of a feast for the eyes and motives for painting.” In fact, Giverny and its gardens not only served as motives for his painting; they gave him a kind of basis for the implementation of a project that was to become his life's work and of which this garden turned out to be the pinnacle.

In 1892, Monet finally married Alice, with whom he was in love. long years. At the same time, Monet painted “Haystacks” - the first large series of paintings, where the artist tries to capture on canvas the nuances of lighting haystacks. changing depending on the time of day and weather. He works simultaneously on several canvases, moving from one to another in accordance with the emerging light effects. This series had big success and significantly influenced many artists of that time.

Monet returns to the experience of “The Haystacks” in a new series, “The Poplars,” where the trees on the banks of the Epte River are also depicted in different time days. When working on Poplars, Monet went to a location each time with several easels and lined them up so that he could quickly move from one to another depending on the lighting. In addition, this time he wants to express his own vision in paintings, and he does it in a matter of minutes, competing in speed with nature.

Before finishing the series, Monet learns that the poplars are going to be cut down and sold. In order to complete the work, he contacts the buyer and offers him monetary compensation for postponing the felling. This series, exhibited at the Durand-Ruel Gallery in 1892, was also a great success, but the large Rouen Cathedral series, which Monet worked on between 1892 and 1894, was even more enthusiastically received. Consistently depicting the change in lighting from dawn to evening twilight, he painted fifty views of the majestic Gothic facade, dissolving, dematerializing in the light. He writes faster and faster, hastily applying dotted strokes to the canvas.

In February 1895, he travels to Norway, to Sandviken, near Oslo, where he paints the fjords, Mount Kolsaas and views of the village in which he lives. This cycle of winter landscapes is reminiscent in style of works written around 1870. The following year, Monet makes a real pilgrimage to the places where he painted in previous years; and Pourville, Dieppe, Varejanville return to his canvases again.

In 1897, the collection of Gustave Caillebotte, who died in 1894, became the property of national museums, and many works of the Impressionists finally found their way into state collections. In the summer, twenty of Monet's paintings are exhibited at the second Venice Biennale.

In the fall of 1899, in Giverny, he began the “Water Lilies” cycle, which he would work on until his death. The beginning of the new century finds Monet in London; the artist again paints Parliament and a whole series of paintings united by one motif - fog. From 1900 to 1904, Monet often traveled to Great Britain and in 1904 exhibited thirty-seven views of the Thames at the Durand-Ruel Gallery. In the summer he returns to “Water Lilies” and in February of the following year participates in fifty-five works in big exhibition Impressionists, organized by Durand-Ruel in London.

In 1908, Monet set off on his penultimate journey: he and his wife traveled to Venice at the invitation of the Curtis family, an American friend of the artist John Singer Sargent, where he lived in the Palazzo Barbaro on the Canal Grande. Monet decides to stay in the city longer to work, and checks into the Britannia Hotel for two months. He is so fascinated by the atmosphere of Venice, the light effects, reflections of the water and the reflections of monuments in it that he comes there again the next year. To one architectural specialist who, during an interview, argued that “The Doge's Palace can be defined as an example of impressionist rather than Gothic architecture,” Monet replied: “The architect who conceived this palace was the first impressionist. He created it floating on the water, growing out of the water, shining in the air of Venice, just as an impressionist painter applies shining strokes to a canvas to convey a sense of atmosphere. While working on this painting, I wanted to paint exactly the atmosphere of Venice. The palace that appeared in my composition was only an excuse to depict the atmosphere. After all, all of Venice is immersed in this atmosphere. Floating in this atmosphere. This is impressionism in stone." Returning to France, he continued to work in his studio on paintings from the Venetian period, which would not be exhibited until 1912, a year after the death of his wife Alice, at the Bernheim Jr. Gallery. The exhibition was preceded by an article by Octave Mirbeau.

Since 1908, the artist’s vision begins to deteriorate; Now he devotes all his attention to the garden and continues to work on the “Water Lilies” series, begun back in 1890. Having diverted the waters of a small tributary of the Epte River, Rue, which flowed through his land, Monet made a small pond in Giverny. On the mirror surface of the resulting reservoir, he grew water lilies, and planted willows and various exotic plants around it. To complete the project, a wooden bridge was built over the pond, the idea of which was inspired by oriental engravings. The artist was always fascinated by flowers and reflections on the water, but this project undoubtedly reflected the influence of Japanese culture, which spread in Europe since the middle of the century and greatly interested Monet and his contemporaries. This wonderful corner of the garden has been dedicated to the latest large works Monet is a tired artist whose vision problems become more serious over the years.

In 1914, his eldest son Jean died. Monet feels increasingly lonely. but continues to work, encouraged by Georges Clemenceau and Octave Mirbeau, who often come to visit their friend.

Thanks to the presence of Monet, Giverny turns into a kind of colony of artists, primarily American, but Monet himself prefers to lead a secluded life, assuring that he has no “recipe” for young people, and therefore cannot teach anyone anything. He spends all his time in the garden - and writes, writes. The progressive deterioration of vision no longer allows him to transmit light effects with the same accuracy as before. Sometimes, if a painting seems unsuccessful to him, Monet destroys his work in a rage. And yet he continues to write, and because of his vision problems, he develops a new approach to painting.

For so many years of work in Giverny, every corner of the garden at any time of the day was imprinted in his mind. And Monet thought that it would be interesting to paint a series of impressions of the whole, not from nature, but in the studio. In this regard, he decided to build a new large workshop on his estate. Construction of the new premises was completed in 1916: the workshop was 25 meters long, 15 meters wide and the ceiling was two-thirds made of glass. There Monet gets to work. He paints on canvas measuring four meters by two and creates amazing works that comprehensively convey impressions of the kingdom he created, again and again capturing morning fogs, sunsets, twilight and night darkness on the canvas.

In 1918, on the occasion of the armistice, he decided to donate a new series to the state. His friend Georges Clemenceau, who was then prime minister, wants to provide Monet with a prestigious premises, namely the Orangerie Pavilion in the Tuileries Garden. But Monet was still not satisfied with his work and, with the tenacity characteristic of his attitude towards painting, continued to work until 1926 - the year of his death. In addition to the series of eight panels donated to the state, placed in the Oval Hall of Orangerie in 1927, Monet painted many other works during this period, which were found after the artist’s death in his studio in Giverny and are now in the Marmottan Museum in Paris. Some of them, undated, but undoubtedly related to last period creativity, in manner approaching the avant-garde aesthetic movements of the beginning of the century, in particular, expressionism.

Indeed, Monet takes to the extreme the process of dematerialization already outlined in the series of cathedrals. It not only goes beyond the stylistics of impressionism, but in some ways, perhaps, anticipates the artistic language of non-figurative painting of the period after the Second World War.

The biography was written based on materials from the site www.centre.smr.ru

Where is the house and garden of the famous impressionist artist Claude Monet. We will tell you about how to get to Claude Monet's house, about the time when lilies bloom, what to see in Giverny and when is the best time to go there. By the way, in order to avoid wasting time in queues and problems with transport, you can buy a tour to Giverny directly from Paris using this link (calculate the transport costs and tickets yourself and you will understand that the tour does not cost much more, only here the excursion is also included).

How to get to Giverny by train

Flowering schedule in Giverny by season

Giverny in spring

March:

At the end of March, with the arrival of spring, the first flowers appear in Claude Monet's garden - these are hyacinths, daffodils, pansies and daisies. This is the time when Giverny opens its doors to visitors.

April:

The artist's garden turns into a real paradise. Daffodils and tulips are blooming. They are joined by other spring flowers. In addition, at this time, apple and cherry trees bloom. In a Japanese pond, the first spring flowers gently awaken...

This is perhaps the most blooming, but also the most crowded month in Giverny. Tulips and forget-me-nots, night violets and poppies, the famous irises accompanied by peonies, exotic bulbs in violet-blue and cream tones, lilies, hyacinths - all of them bloom for visitors to the garden.

Japanese maples and century-old beeches are beginning to put on their spring foliage. The Japanese bridge, shrouded in fragrant wisteria, blooms and smells. Everything is like in Monet’s paintings!

Giverny in summer

June:

June means roses and rose bushes! And, of course, the main event is the appearance of white, yellow and pink lilies in the Japanese pond.

July:

Snapdragons, carnations, begonias, pink and red geraniums bloom in Claude Monet's garden. Sunflowers and hollyhocks reach their maximum height. In a Japanese pond, water lilies appear in all their grandeur.

August:

Dahlias and our beloved gladioli are blooming. Red sage and orange and yellow carnations can be seen. The Japanese pond needs daily tidying up. Previously, Claude Monet himself was responsible for cutting leaves and algae every morning, filtering the water and maintaining the water lilies. Now a special gardener does this.

Giverny in autumn

September:

Many different varieties of nasturtiums bloom, including the famous Lobba nasturtiums, which give the impression of a waterfall, in which Claude Monet found inspiration during his stay in Italy. Japanese pond - the light becomes softer, the reflections in the water darken, emphasizing all sorts of shades of the pond. Autumn comes and water lilies begin to fade.

October:

October is the explosive flowering of dahlias, the fading of other flowers, replaced by purple, blue, red, pink and white asters.

Yellow-orange weeping willows lean over a Japanese pond, and a Canadian maple glows red.

Claude Monet's garden is getting ready for bed.

Giverny in winter

Starting in November, the garden is closed to visitors. However, he lives life to the fullest. Workers are rushing to cultivate the soil, plant new bulbs, clean the pond - and all this so that in the spring visitors can once again enjoy Claude Monet's beautiful garden!

Have a nice trip!

The picturesque village of Giverny became world famous thanks to the impressionist artist Claude Monet. The estate where they passed it best years and dozens of masterpieces were written, today it is one of the most visited corners of France.

Background

Biographies of Claude Monet say that he first saw Giverny from a train window. In the spring of 1883, he made a special visit to this place, and the landscapes from blooming gardens made a deep impression on him.

At that time, Monet was already quite famous and rich. Soon he purchased a house in Giverny and moved there permanently with his family, and a few years later he began arranging his unique garden. Here Claude Monet was destined to live happily for 43 years, until his death in 1926.

House-museum

In the 1980s, the house in Giverny became the Claude Monet Museum (Fondation Claude Monet). Its external and internal decoration, furniture arrangement and all furnishings have been completely preserved in the form in which they were during the artist’s lifetime.

Monet was personally involved in the arrangement of the house: the decoration of living rooms, bedrooms and other rooms was made in his favorite bright colors. One of the most memorable parts of the house is the dining room: it is painted in a rich yellow color and decorated with valuable Japanese prints that the artist collected throughout his life. His hobby Japanese culture This is reflected in other rooms, where you can find not only engravings, but also pieces of furniture in the oriental style.

The museum has preserved a large number of personal belongings and household items that belonged to Claude Monet and his family: dishes, kitchen utensils, carpets, watches, etc. The artist's bedroom is decorated with paintings given to him by his impressionist friends: Renoir, Cézanne, Pissarro and others.
For painting classes, Monet equipped 3 studios in the estate; only one of them is now open to visitors. In it, the artist kept his favorite works that were not intended for sale. Today, Monet’s paintings themselves are not here; the “working” atmosphere is created by their high-quality copies. You can see the original paintings of the founder of impressionism in the Orsay and Marmottan-Monet museums in Paris.

(30.00 €)
(35.00 €)

Garden

Of great interest to tourists is not only Claude Monet’s house, but also his main “workshop” – the garden. For many years, this place was the main source of inspiration for the great impressionist and practically the only object of creativity. During the 43 years that the artist lived in Giverny, he painted several hundred paintings depicting a Japanese-style garden and pond with weeping willows, white flowers on the water and wooden bridges. It was here that the most famous series Monet's paintings - "Water Lilies".

Today, the Claude Monet Foundation is caring for the estate in Giverny. Like the house museum, all corners of the garden are maintained in pristine condition. Tourists can explore the estate from April to October, and the best months to visit are May and June: it is at this time that the artist’s favorite flowers, water lilies, bloom.

The small village of Giverny appeared on maps more than a thousand years ago, but is known mainly as the place where the world famous impressionist Claude Monet lived for 43 years and where a huge number of his paintings were created. Only 80 km separate this picturesque place from Paris. Thanks to the presence of a master known during his lifetime, the inconspicuous village became a haven and resting place for many artists.

At one time, Matisse, Cezanne, Renoir, and Pissarro walked along the streets of Giverny.

How to get there

The most romantic way is to rush to Giverny on your own. The train from the Paris Saint-Lazare train station goes to Vernon, where a bus is usually waiting to take you the remaining 6 km to Monet's garden. You can rent a bicycle for 12 EUR at Café du Chemin de Fer, which is opposite the station. This short path can also be walked: cross the river and then turn right onto the D5 road. Be careful: when you get to Giverny, turn left at the fork, otherwise you will have to go around the garden.

By car, the journey from Paris takes about an hour. Take the A13 motorway towards Vernon/Giverny until exit 14.

Prices on the page are as of August 2018.

Search for flights to Paris (closest airport to Giverny)

Claude Monet's Garden

In addition to the fact that the pretty village became the home and creative workshop of Monet as an artist, it best illustrates his outstanding abilities as a landscape designer and gardener. After all, it was the expanses of Giverny that became a blank canvas on which the artist experimented with varieties of roses, hyacinths, and irises, combined prim ferns and lush peonies, and shaded faded forget-me-nots with lush poppies. And it was the landscapes of this garden that formed the basis for Monet’s best works.

Now admirers of Monet’s work are drawn here from all over the world to see with their own eyes a pond with water lilies and a Japanese lacy bridge spanning the pond. The artist also worked on this part of the garden with his own hands, painstakingly creating for himself a source of inspiration for the next 20 years. Here he created famous works“Aiguille Rock and Porte d’Aval”, “Mannport Gate in Etretat”, “Rocks in Belle-Ile”, “Rocks in Etretat”, “Haystack in Giverny”, “Water Lilies”.

Monet's estate in Giverny

After the artist's death, his son Michel transferred the estate to the Academy of Fine Arts. Its employees still provide thoughtful support appearance house and garden in the form in which the owner left them, turning this place into the house-museum of the French impressionist artist (Musée Claude Monet).

Inside you won't find Monet's work, but it's painted in... bright colors the house is filled with everyday details of the master’s life, and the hall is the famous “Water Lily” studio, decorated with reproductions of Monet’s works. The best time to visit the garden is May and June, when the wisteria rhododendrons begin to bloom around the pond.

Practical information

Address: Giverny, Rue Claude Monet, 65-75. Official website of the estate (available in French, English and Japanese).

Opening hours: daily from April to November, from 9:30 to 18:00.

Admission: 9.50 EUR (adults), 5.50 EUR (children over 7 years old and students), children under 7 years old entry free.

Popular hotels in Giverny

Sights of Giverny

A walk through the outskirts of a Norman village is an opportunity to look at the world through the eyes of Monet; it is impossible to be indifferent to the plush green hills, fragrant groves, stone houses surrounded by well-crafted wooden fences, brave irises that make their way through the road dust, wherever they please, and not where the hand of man commands. And immediately you want to grab a pencil, pen, brush, camera and capture the mesmerizing beauty of a simple rural landscape

Museum of Impressionism

In addition to the Monet family nest, Giverny has other attractions, such as the Museum of Impressionism, created to host temporary exhibitions and installations by impressionist artists. It happens that even Monet’s works are exhibited in his halls. By the way, quite recently this building was called the Museum American art and specialized in the work of American artists, but it was decided to push the geographical boundaries of art that spanned the whole world.

The museum is open from the beginning of April to the end of October. By the way, it is possible to sell combined tickets that give a discount when visiting several attractions in Giverny. Address: Giverny, rue Claude Monet, 99. More information about opening hours and discounts on tickets can be found on the museum's website (in English).

Cafe

You can take a pleasant break by visiting house no. 81 on rue Claude Monet, where a former hotel is located, and today there is a nice restaurant, Hotel Baudy. This place is a real legend: Cezanne, Renoir, Sisley, Rodin once drank coffee at the tables of this cafe, and at the end of the 19th century, only artists stayed on the upper floors of the hotel. The “Hotel for American Artists” even preserved a number of paintings and sketches by now famous masters, with which the guests paid the hostess for their stay. Now you can taste French cuisine by paying 25-30 EUR for lunch.

Monet's family crypt

Next to the Church of St. Radegund is the family burial place of Monet. The ancient church is a rural, simple temple, striking in its antiquity and special atmosphere. Monet married for the second time in this church, and was later buried in the family crypt. The oldest street in the village, rue aux Juifs, in the medieval part of Giverny, is imbued with a special charm, as evidenced by ancient buildings and the ruins of a medieval monastery.

Where to stay: The starting point for traveling around the surrounding capital of France is best to choose directly

80 kilometers north of Paris there is a picturesque place Giverny (Giverny). Hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world, hundreds of thousands of people who are not indifferent to beauty, make a pilgrimage here. The impressionist artist lived and worked here for forty-three years. Claude Monet.

In 1883, the artist bought a house in this village, where he settled with his entire large family. Monet idolized nature. He was interested in gardening, bought books, and took great interest in the plot of land near his new home.

The artist exchanged seeds with other gardeners and carried on active correspondence with nurseries. For local peasants, “urban” ones were an unusual sight. The artist did not disdain any dirty work in the garden; the locals respected him very much.

Monet's family on a walk in the garden (artist on the right)

Edouard Manet “Monet’s Family in the Garden”

Monet at his home in Giverny

At first, the house and the surrounding land occupied no more than 1 hectare. But 10 years later, when Monet’s financial affairs were going well, he bought another plot, which was separated from the old one Railway. Later it was replaced with a road surface for cars, so Monet's territory remained divided.

Thanks to artistic talent and hard work, what was previously just a vegetable garden near the house turned, thanks to Mona, into a real celebration of color, light and beauty. He planted everything with different types of flowers and plants.

The artist adored plants and flowers so much (and therefore the abundance of colors during their flowering!) that when he got his hands on a voluminous catalog of flower seeds, he didn’t waste much time studying it and ordered everything! Roses, lilies, wisteria, tulips, daisies, sunflowers, gladioli, asters - all this greeted the Monet family and their guests.

But the second part of the garden, behind the highway, evokes special attention and awe among visitors. This is the so-called water garden. You can get there through a tunnel. Everyone who comes here involuntarily freezes, holding their breath, seeing the masterpiece created by the great artist, recognizing the plots of his world-famous paintings.

Claude Monet “White Water Lilies”

Claude Monet “Water Lilies”

Claude Monet “Water lilies. Green reflection, left side”

He drained the swampy area, formed ponds and canals, skillfully channeling the water of the Ept River into them.
The banks of the pond were decorated with a variety of plants - raspberries, holly, Japanese sakura, anemones, peonies and many others. The main attraction of the garden is the Japanese bridge, entwined with wisteria, which lovers of the artist’s work simply cannot help but recognize. And most importantly, Monet ordered nymphaeum (water lily) seeds from Japan and decorated the water surface of the pond with them. Nymphs of different varieties were planted in the reservoir, and weeping willows, bamboo, irises, rhododendrons and roses were planted along the banks.

For Monet, the garden became his muse and his main occupation. Claude Monet wrote about water lilies:

“I planted them for pleasure, without even thinking that I would write them. And suddenly, unexpectedly, the revelation of my fabulous, wonderful pond came to me. I took the palette, and from that time on I almost never had another model.”

This artist’s painting technique is different in that he did not mix paints. And he placed them side by side or layered one on top of the other in separate strokes. Monet’s favorite manner of working in series allowed him not to ignore the slightest nuances of color and light - fortunately, a separate canvas could be devoted to each shade of the state of nature. Japanese bridge? – 18 options. A pond with white water lilies? – 13 paintings. Water lilies? – 48 canvases. And this list can go on for a long time...

Claude Monet “Water Lilies and the Japanese Bridge”

In 1916, when he was already 76 years old, he built a spacious studio to the right of the main house, which was called the “Water Lily Studio.” Here the artist realized his last grandiose plan - he created panels depicting water lilies, forming a circular panorama of about 70 m in circumference.

He donated these paintings to France, and they were placed in a specially built pavilion, which is located on the edge of the Tuileries Garden, where it faces the Place de la Concorde. If you look at the pavilion from above, it looks like a figure eight. In two oval halls, connected by a lintel, paintings depicting a pond in Giverny are hung: six or eight canvases. In essence, this is one picture that conveys changes in nature that are inaccessible to the ordinary eye as the day progresses.

Art critics claim that painting here has reached such perfection that it has erased the line between realism and abstract art. Claude Monet simply stopped the moment, because everything goes away, but nothing disappears, and life is always a waiting next day. This was the lifetime triumph of Claude Monet's work.

Claude Monet “Water Lilies (Clouds)”

Claude Monet “Pond with Water Lilies and Irises”

Claude Monet drew inspiration from the water garden for 20 years. Monet wrote:

“...the revelation of my fabulous, wonderful pond came to me. I took the palette, and from that time on I almost never had another model.”

He first created paintings in nature, they gave reflections in the water surface of the pond, and then the artist transferred them to canvas. Getting up every day at five in the morning, he came here and painted in any weather and any time of year. Here he created more than a hundred paintings. This is very surprising for a genius, but Claude Monet was a very happy man. He achieved recognition during his lifetime, loved and was loved, did what he loved.

“I’m good for nothing except painting and gardening.”
Claude Monet

Monet devoted almost thirty years of his long life to his favorite subjects. The famous impressionist died in Giverny in 1926 at the age of 86. After the artist's death in 1926, his daughter Blanche looked after the house. But during the Second World War it fell into disrepair. Later in 1966, Monet's son transferred the estate to the Academy of Fine Arts, which immediately began restoration of first the house and then the garden.

Restored after a long period of neglect thanks to the generosity of American and French patrons, Claude Monet's garden was already widely known at the beginning of the century. Georges Clemenceau, who knew the artist from the time of meetings in the Parisian cafe “Gerbois” and owned one of the village houses near Giverny, was so amazed by this event that he even dedicated a small brochure to him, in which he wrote:

“Claude Monet’s garden can be considered one of his works, in it the artist miraculously realized the idea of transforming nature according to the laws of light painting. His studio was not limited by walls, it opened out onto the open air, where color palettes were scattered everywhere, training the eye and satisfying the insatiable appetite of the retina, ready to perceive the slightest flutter of life.”

Now Giverny is visited by more than half a million people a year. The French are planning to submit an application to include the Claude Monet House Museum and Garden in Giverny on the List World Heritage UNESCO.

Directions to Monet's garden:

France, Giverny (80 km north of Paris on the A13 highway).
The garden is open to the public every day except Mondays from 9.30 to 18.00 (ticket sales stop half an hour before closing).

Entrance fees:

Adults: 9 euros
Children from 7 years old and students: 5 euros
Children under 7 years old: free
Disabled: 4 euros

Parking: free

Keep in mind that if you want to see the artist’s paintings, then you need to go to the Orsay Museum, the Orangerie Museum and a hundred other museums in the world, since there are no paintings by the artist here.