A big copper beech shades Claude Monet’s water garden at Giverny.

It is a very old tree, dating back to Monet’s time. It must be over 100 years old, a survivor from the original garden Monet planted.

In October, Autumn has come and the beech is not copper anymore but brown, as you can see from its reflection in the waterlily pond. The rest of the season this senior among the trees in the garden has strange powers.

There is a magic in it: when you stand under its branches and you look up, its leaves are perfectly green. But seen from a distance they become dark red.

Certainly one could find a scientific explanation for this magic, but please! don’t tell me. I prefer not to know.

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Claude Monet made his garden famous by painting it over and over again. There are 272 canvases by Monet featuring his water garden, not to speak about the Grandes Decorations, these oversized panels that can be seen at l’Orangerie Museum in Paris.

Monet didn’t want any other motive for almost twenty years. He was in his seventies and eighties and didn’t feel like travelling for long painting campaigns anymore.

In addition there was war, the first World War from 1914 through 1918. Monet preferred to stay in his garden to paint. Here he found all the inspiration he needed.

Monet painted his pond or his bridge repeatedly, because for him there were never the same. What he wanted to render was not especially a flower or a bridge, but the light on them, the air that wraps them. And the light changes all the time.

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Monet’s Garden at Giverny is lined by a small stream.

The name of this stream is le Ru, which means the stream in french. It is not very informative!

But the Ru is a branch of a bigger river, the Epte, which is meaningfull. The Epte was for several centuries the border between two kingdoms, England on one side (because the English king was duke of Normandy) and France on the other side.

Between 911 and 1204 there were many castles and strongholds built on each side of the river to defend the border, and battles fought.

There is still a tower remaining in nearby market town Vernon. It was the keep of the castle. And facing this castle 10 miles away, the castle of La Roche Guyon and its medieval dungeon can still be visited.

Nowadays the river is a border between two regions, Normandy on one side and the area of Paris Ile de France on the other one. Giverny lies on the norman bank, it is the first village of Normandy when coming from Paris.

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Where there is a bubble, there is a fish.

Many fish live in Monet’s lake at Giverny. They help keeping its balance.

There are many rudd, easy to recognize because of their orange fins, and carp.

The carp are not Koi carp, they are  wild ones. They come from the Seine river.

A few years ago there was a flood. It was like paradise for carp, they went wandering in an almost endless lake.

Unfortunately for the carp, the water receded, and they were trapped in puddles. They would have died, but the gardeners of Giverny saved them with big garbage cans.

They released them in the pond. Since this day they have been doing well. Now they are big carp and likely to become very old.

And there are also pike in the pond. Several ones, but one is especially big and especially nasty.

Two years ago, a couple of moor hens had made their nest on the island in the middle of the pond. When they had their chicks, seven sweet little chicks, they brought them on the pond to teach them how to swim. Then this greedy pike ate them all one by one.

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The sunshine creates rays of light through the mist produced by the watering device in Monet’s garden.

In the summertime most flowers need a lot of water to remain beautiful.

In Monet’s gardens at Giverny the sprinklers are on duty early in the morning and in the evening, to save water and to avoid that visitors get wet, of course.

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At Monet’s time, only white water lilies grew wild in France.

They were hardy flowers, able to stand cold and frost, whereas pink or yellow water lilies were of exotic origin and needed a warm greenhouse to spend the winter.

When Monet created his water garden at Giverny and imagined a pond with floating islands of colorful nympheas, these flowers where very modern.

By the end of the nineteen century a man called Bory Latour-Marliac had the idea of cross fertilizing hardy white water lilies with exotic ones. He was successful and obtained a full palette of hardy waterlilies. In 1889, the year of the Eiffel tower, Latour-Marliac exhibited his new creations at the Universal Exhibition in Paris, where Monet saw them. Four years before he had his pond dug he conceived the idea of it by seeing the beautiful water flowers.

Would Latour-Marliac not have created  his flowers, Monet would probably not have painted his Nympheas masterpieces.

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In his water garden at Giverny, Claude Monet had a dock adornated by arches of climbing roses.

It is especially beautiful in late June when the roses are in blossom, adding their pink to the greens of the foliages.
At Monet’s time there was a boat anchored at the dock. It was used mainly by the gardener devoted to the water garden.

This gardener had a special job: every morning he had to wash the water lilies. The road nearby made them dusty, Monet who wanted to paint them, wanted them to be clean.

The gardener used to get up very early in the morning, before the master would come, and tour the pond in the boat to push the flowers under the surface with the row to clean them.

Water lily washer, isn’t it a poetic job?

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Claude Monet was influenced by his extensive collection of Japanese woodblocks when he created his water garden.

He liked all the bamboos, wisterias, water lilies or peonies he could see on them and wanted these exotic plants in his garden.

He also loved the curved bridges which are so common on Japanese prints.

But although Monet knew pretty well the lay out of a Japanese garden thanks to his readings and to his neighbour American painter Lilla Cabbott Perry who had lived in Tokyo, he  took poetic license.
He didn’t intend to create a true Japanese garden. His bridges are much less bent than authentic ones, and they are green. In a true Japanese garden, they should be red.

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Water lilies have their own dreams: being as light as soap bubbles and  float in the air…

Monet was fascinated by the reflection of the sky and the clouds.

When the water is absolutely still the surface of his lake is a perfect mirror.

The Nympheas seem to hang in the blue sky.

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Monet was keen on painting through the weeping willow. It was difficult, and he liked the challenge.

There was the vertical axis of the branches and the horizontal axis of the floating water lilies.

In addition, the reflection of the sky looks like a hole in the water.

And Monet could even see the stems of the flowers under the surface.

When he painted here, he had to mix all the different plans to put them on the two dimensional canvas.

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The wisteria is at its peak over the Japanese Bridge in Claude Monet’s garden.

Its flowers look like long grapes. They are a soft tone of lavender and produce a delicious scent which recalls to the scent of jasmine.

It is an incredible feeling to stand on the bridge and be surrounded by the blooming wisteria all around you.

The beautiful effect doesn’t last very long, but Monet had thought of a special jocker. A second later wisteria will follow the lavender one when it is over. The second one is a white wisteria.

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This part of Monet’s water garden at Giverny ‘looks like Japan’, as the painter would have said.

Monet was inspired by his large collection of Japanese woodblocks when he landscaped his water garden. He planted many exotic species of plants he could see on the prints, like azaleas, rhododendrums, wisterias, bamboos, Japanese maples and of course water lilies. Monet imported peonies in trees from Japan. Many plants in his garden had never been seen before in Giverny.

However his garden is not a true Japanese garden, the spirit being very different.

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Spring has come suddenly. It was warm and sunny today, and the sunshine enhanced the bright colors of Monet’s flower garden.

In the water garden the azaleas are in full bloom. On the trees the little leaves look tender and fresh.

April light has a special quality, a sort of sparkling effect that can be noticed on Monet’s footbridge seen into backlight.

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