The Wildenstein Plattner Institute just announced that Claude Monet’s 110 pastels are now catalogued on line. Less known than the oil paintings, they are of stunning beauty. The website offers also insights, informations and commentary by Geraldine Lefebvre, that can easily be translated to any language. Enjoy !
A guest of mine treated me with a very special gift: an issue of the Observer dated from the 12 October 1980, with the opening of Giverny on the cover. The article is signed Jane and Geoffrey Grigson, the culinary writer goddess and her husband, poet and editor, both keen on arts. Pamla Toler took the beautiful photos.
The text logically starts by locating Giverny ‘on the southernmost edge of Normandy‘ but to my surprise, instead of describing as usual the way from Paris, the journey begins in Le Havre. British visitors crossing the Channel in a ferry would probably land there. After underlining the shortness of the drive, the authors suggest a picnic in the countryside and a visit to Monet’s grave.
Their first impression of the gardens is that ‘it is better to speak of a flower-palette than of a flower composition‘. They note the many colors of the irises, ‘yellow, pink, white, cream, blue‘, and start the tour by the house. Their astonishment and emotion increase as they enter the dining room: ‘Has anyone, any painter, left more of himself behind in a room?‘ After evocating the colors, the Japanese woodblocks, the many visitors in Monet’s times, they enter the kitchen : ‘then comes a second shock, dining-room to kitchen, immediately alongside, yellow to blue, a blue-tiled kitchen as cool as the colour can make it‘.
The tour continues in the house, in the flowers garden and around the water lily pond, inviting, well written and well observed – the least for an article for the Observer.
In the vicinity of Giverny, the little town of Vernon has a museum that is well worth a visit, at least for its impressionist rooms that include two beautiful Monets. The museum Alphonse-Georges-Poulain also owns 8 works by Blanche Hoschedé-Monet (1865 – 1947). At the same time step daughter and daughter in law of the master, Blanche was his only pupil. She often painted next to him, until she stopped when Monet lost his wife – her mother – to take care of him.
Blanche resumed painting after Monet died. Then only she dared choosing his garden as a motiv. The Pond at Giverny is not dated but we can guess it was painted between 1927 and 1947.
The corner Blanche picked up doesn’t appear on Monet’s works. The angle encompasses the dock on the far left, a cherry blossom, two tall trees that could be the ashes at the entrance to the water garden, the still young copper beech and probably the start of the Japanese bridge on the far right. The edges of the pond are still like in Monet’s times, with clumps of irises, peonies and rosebushes on lawns, a contrast with the present day lush flower beds all around the pond.
One of the joys of winter is that Nature schedules its sunrise show at a decent morning time. This is River Seine at Vernon and Giverny at about 8.30 am in January. Claude Monet would have loved it.
This unique cross stitch work features Monet’s house at Giverny. I shot it at an exhibition organised by a group of cross stitchers from Vernon. To see all the details, click to enlarge.
For 2019, I wish you a lot of time to do all what you’ve been wanting to do for a long while. It may be sitting next to the fire place embroidering or organizing your next holiday… Enjoy this new year!
Are you curious about flower names? Would you enjoy a picture a day of Giverny’s flowers? This new perpetual calendar is great to get familiar with the flowers that grow in Claude Monet’s gardens. I’ve sorted out my best pictures and identified the flowers with the help of the Giverny gardeners. Botanical name, common name, even French name and photo date are specified for each flower.
On some pictures you will recognize the place in the background, just like the poppy picture on the cover. This perpetual calendar is for Giverny lovers and flower lovers alike.
The cost is 19 euros + shipment. If you can wait for 2 weeks, the shipment is 4 euros only. Just drop me a comment and I will be back in touch with the details.
Enjoy December!
Thanksgiving is a typically North American feast that we don’t have in Europe, but I wish to borrow it for a moment to say a big end-of-the-year Thank You.
Thank you to all the people who visited France this year, and to those who traveled to Giverny.
Thank you to the staff of Giverny, especially to the gardeners, for making it such a lovely place to enjoy.
Thank you to the sun that was so present last summer and autumn.
And thank you to mother Nature for creating all the heart shaped leaves that I like so much and love discovering in the gardens.
I’m posting a photo of Giverny a day on facebook.
I would be please to see you there!
These pics are taken from the perpetual calendar I published.
If you wish to order it, just drop me a comment and I will be in touch.
The birds are not the only ones that sing at Giverny. Today I heard a gentleman whistling a melody in the tunnel leading to the water garden. It was so on key and sounded so well that every body stopped to listen.
A bit later, a little girl sitting under the weeping willow hummed a nursery rhyme. A group of teenagers “that had been singing in the coach all the way from Paris to Giverny” according to their teacher continued in Monet’s gardens with all the good old hits of the Eighties they knew.
And then, the smiles. I love to see how people look happy when they come back from standing on the Japanese bridge, after they have realized that they are there, for real.
And all the bright smiles visitors have for the camera. The funny poses they strike.
I too must smile at the school children on a day trip that yell, super excited: “Here are the water lilies! We found them!”
I share the exhilaration of keen gardeners looking at all the botanical marvels of Giverny. I can feel the concentration of the artists sitting on benches and drawing.
Why is Giverny so popular? Because it is the perfect place to feel a perfect moment of joie de vivre!
Thanks to Louise, the fairies that fly in Monet’s gardens at Giverny can be seen at last. Look at this handsome little guy reflecting into Monet’s water lily pond… It is no problem to walk on the water as long as you’ve got dragonfly wings and a magic wand! (click to enlarge and see all the lovely details).
Louise sent me a few of these adorable works she’s done using my photos of Monet’s garden as a background. I love the delicate and sensitive way she peoples the garden with airy little beings. If you want to see more of them, please write a comment.
Edit of 27 June 2016
Thank you for your comment, Carol, here you are!
I’m not used to reviewing books on this blog, but I need to make an exception for the newly published Gardens of Awe and Folly by Vivian Swift (Bloomsbury). It is the kind of book that puts a smile on your face when you look at it on the coffee table. The book that you want to re-read as soon as you’ve finished it. Humorous, imaginative, poetic, tender, insightful, and absolutely beautiful because of the many lovely watercolors by the author.
Vivian Swift made her very personal selection of gardens that matter to her and tells stories about them. As she puts it, “If all you ask of a garden is What?, then all you’ll probably get in reply is a planting list. But ask, instead, Why? How? When? and, most of all, Who? and then you’re in for a nice, long conversation. This book is a collection of the conversations I’ve had with nine gardens that had a lot to say.”
For an idea of chapter one, you can have a look at Vivian Swift’s blog. You will see how much she loves Paris… If you browse to older posts, you will learn more about Vivian’s next project: a book on Giverny, especially on how to paint Giverny. She makes it sound so easy and fun!
A flower hedge at the edge of Monet’s garden
For a French tongue, pronouncing the English words starting with an h is not that easy. The French language doesn’t have this sound, thence it is a special effort to say these words right. I do my utmost. I apply myself. I concentrate. I don’t mix up edges and hedges, ear and hear.
Today however, at the end of my tour in Monet’s garden, a gentleman came to me. He told me that there is a word that comes several times in my commentary that I didn’t say right: heir. Monet’s heir, his son Michel. As a lawyer, he explained, it is a word he knows only too well. It is not like the hair, but like the air.
Wow. Isn’t it disconcerting? I expected exactly the contrary, that I had forgotten the h. I was very grateful, because it was done with kindness. It felt like receiving a little gift.
My English has improved a lot since school, thanks to the native speakers I meet every day. But very few take the trouble to correct me. I suppose a certain quantity of mistakes is acceptable, just like for you when reading this blog. I’ve improved because I paid attention to the right phrases, grammar, or pronunciation of my interlocutors. But I never realized this very mistake, although lots of visitors have asked me about Monet’s heirs. Because it is not relevant in French, I didn’t notice that the h was missing.