by Ariane ~ October 24, 2008
This is the Famous Japanese Bridge that Claude Monet painted so often.
It deserves lots of capitals because it has become the icon of the painter’s garden at Giverny.
In the bright sunshine its green turns almost blue, as can be observed on Monet’s paintings of this motive.
The picture was made in July when the wisteria tangled on the arbor flowers for a second time. This second blooming while the leaves are out is by far more discreet than the first one in May.
by Ariane ~ October 23, 2008
Fondation Claude Monet at Giverny generally closes for the Winter on October 31st, but this year Claude Monet’s home will remain open two more days on Saturday November 1 and Sunday November 2, 2008.
It is a unique opportunity to appreciate as late as possible in season, the changing colors of the trees around the lily pond and the warm tones of the vine on the house Monet inhabited for 43 years.
Original also, visitors will be able to stroll in the gardens at sunset. It is a fantastic experience to see Monet’s garden invaded by the shades, just before it fells asleep for a five-month-winter.
by Ariane ~ October 15, 2008
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.
by Ariane ~ October 9, 2008
I am absolutely excited by the news I’ve just read in the local newspaper of Vernon: next year, the Fine Arts museum of Giverny (temporarily named Impressionist Museum, but its name may change) will start its new life with an incredible exhibition. The organisers plan to obtain 30 Monets! The theme will be, obviously enough, Monet’s gardens.
It seems too fantastic to be true, but I’m not dreaming. Imagine! The visitor will be able to see the paintings on the very place where they were created, to go from the canvases to the garden, from the garden to the canvases. A unique, unforgetable experience. It will be absolutely gorgeous. Visitors will leave Giverny their eyes full of beauty and harmony.
The new museum will open with this exceptional exhibition on May 1st, 2009, one month later than Monet’s home and gardens at Giverny, opening on April 1st, 2009. The paintings by the master of Impressionism will stay at Giverny through August 15th.
An exhibition of Joan Mitchell‘s paintings is scheduled from August 23rd through October 31st, 2009. The American artist Joan Mitchell has a direct connection with Monet: she bought and lived in the house neighbouring his former house at Vétheuil, 20 km from Giverny.
In the future the museum of Giverny will constitute its own permanent collection. It could be open year round. It’s hard to imagine better news, isn’t it?
by Ariane ~ September 23, 2008
Next year, there will be a museum of Impressionism at Giverny.
The Museum of American Art Giverny located next Monet’s home at Giverny is living its last weeks.
Founded in 1992 by wealthy American collector Daniel Terra, the museum has exhibited American Art till now. Its visitors are mainly French individuals. They discover the Art History of the US, which is not well known in France.
But Foundation Terra will stop ruling the museum next year. The local county administration, the Departement de l’Eure, will deal with the new museum.
To what one can figure out as the public delight, the museum will be devoted to Impressionism. It makes sense on the very spot where Monet, the impressionist leader, painted so many masterpieces, and where hundreds of impressionist painters gathered to create Giverny artists colony.
The Musée de l’Impressionnisme of Giverny will have a famous partner: musée d’Orsay of Paris, a museum that owns the french state collections of paintings from the 19th century – dozens of works by Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Pissarro, Sisley, Morisot…
Next year some of its best canvases will take a short trip to Giverny, 80km west of Paris.
The exhibition opening on 1 April 2009 will be dedicated to the most popular theme one could expect in Giverny: Monet’s gardens. It will certainly be a fantastic exhibition.
by Ariane ~ September 12, 2008
Claude Monet had calculated that the light changes every seven minutes in Giverny. I wonder if he didn’t exagerate a little bit, but he had an exceptional eye and he wanted to render the slightest light changes exactly.
Monet painted in series. He chose a spot he liked in his garden, a special framing of his pond, and he painted it over and over again.
That is to say he had several canvases on work, sometimes ten, sometimes up to twenty. He gave a few brushstrokes on one, then he noticed that the light was changing. He would look among the unfinished canvases to find the one corresponding to this very light effect. He put it on the easel, went on with it for a few minutes. Eventually the light would change again, and Monet accordingly changed the canvas on the easel. And so on.
It was a slow process: Monet had to wait until the same light effect would come back to complete the canvas. Impressionist painters don’t imagine nor remember, they paint what they can see, the impression of the moment.
It is a challenge to paint a moment, for it takes many hours of hard work to paint a landscape. With many canvases on work at the same time, it could last monthes or even years before all of them were considered finished.
by Ariane ~ September 11, 2008
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.
by Ariane ~ September 3, 2008
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.
by Ariane ~ August 30, 2008
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.
by Ariane ~ August 28, 2008
The main alley of Monet’s garden at Giverny is invaded by nasturtiums.
Monet planted them this way, but originally, it was not on purpose.
Monet wanted to soften the straight lines of his alley by an edge of small flowers, and he planted what he thought were dwarf nasturtiums. Which appeared to be… rambling ones, and they started to creep over the gravel.
Monet liked this effect, then he repeated it intentionally every year.
It is a talent to know how to use one’s own mistakes.
by Ariane ~ August 22, 2008
This group feturing a man taming horses can be seen in Vernon’s A. G. Poulain Museum, in the center of the town neighbouring Giverny.
The sculpture is due to Frederick MacMonnies, an American artist who lived and taught for several years in Giverny at the turn of the 20th century.
The man is on a smaller scale than the horses to make them look wilder, and to show the superiority of the spirit over the animal.
by Ariane ~ August 16, 2008
August is one of the best time to visit Monet’s gardens at Giverny.
The pond is covered by water lilies. The nasturtiums invade dramatically the main alley. And all the summer flowers give their big show.
Late summer is the time for giant flowers. Sunflowers of course, and also giant dahlias, rudbeckias, cosmos or helianthus as thick as walls of flowers. It is a strange feeling to be towered by these tall flowers. Anybody, even basketball players, could play hide and seek in Monet’s garden without bending his head.
This bee is rushing to visit a balsam, a sort of Impatiens which also belongs to this army of giants.
by Ariane ~ August 8, 2008
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.
by Ariane ~ August 3, 2008
A view of the town of Vernon, three miles from Giverny, seen from the top of the Archives Tower.
On the right the church is Vernon’s collegiate church dedicated to our Lady. It hides the houses of Giverny on the other bank of the Seine river.
Although Vernon was severely damaged by bombings during the last world war, this part of the town remains untouched. Slated or tiled roofs top small town houses piled up along narrow streets. Some of them still exhibit their half timbered walls typical of Normandy.
The houses in the foreground are as old as the keep of the castle on which I was standing, they date back to the 13th century.
by Ariane ~ July 21, 2008
When Claude Monet was 70 he conceived a crazy project: huge panels featuring his pond to be glued on the walls of a big oval room.
Somebody standing in the middle of this room would be surrounded by his relaxing work.
It took him ten years to achieve his aim. He had to build a new studio for these over-sized paintings, he became almost blind because of cataract, but he managed to paint 91meter long canvases (almost 300 feet long). They are two meter high, as high as Monet could paint when he stood. Two rooms were eventually necessary to accommodate them.
The Grandes Decorations can be seen in l’Orangerie Museum in Paris on the Place de la Concorde, opposite to Musée d’Orsay. They won’t travel ever, they cannot be dismounted. The museum has just been renovated for six years and these extremely valuable paintings didn’t move while the ceiling of their rooms were opened and transformed.
A last amazing detail about these amazing murals: Monet donated them to the French state to celebrate the victory of 1918. He donated a ten year work!
