Giverny in the Observer

by Ariane ~ September 8, 2022

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.