The name of Monet and his garden at Giverny evoke specific flowers: water lilies, wisterias, irises in large rows… It rarely brings up images of tulips. The big tulip show of April is a surprise to many visitors.
Tulips in Monet’s times were not yet what they are now, but Monet planted them and painted them, especially on the dining-room doors of his art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. They are so colorful and charming that a painter can only fall under their spell.
10 000 bulbs are planted yearly in Monet’s gardens at Giverny. During the first weeks after the opening, they pop out of the ground, form their thick buds and open all of a sudden at the first ray of sunshine. It is like a canvas suddenly covered by paint, each of them being a brushstroke. It may be the time of year when the feeling of walking in a painting is at its strongest in the flower garden designed by Claude Monet.
