Giverny Impression

Winter is a good time to sort out pictures. I spent a rainy day browsing through last years photographs of Monet’s garden and came to the idea of making a Giverny Calendar out of my favorite shots.

Here is the result, a wall calendar to accompany every Monet fans and garden lovers all year round.

I hope you will like it. I did my best to choose for each month the corresponding flowers in bloom at this time of year, but of course this was not really possible for winter months.

The Giverny Calendar is for sale on line for 27.99 US dollars. You can see all the pictures by clicking on the months.

I would be glad to have your feedback, in order to improve next time.

Joyeux Noël! Merry Christmas!

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The fallen leaves of the three liquidambars look like stars picked on the surface of Monet’s pond at Giverny.

They twinkle against the dark blue reflection of the sky.

In 19th Century France it was a common pattern to paint murals of stars in the night on the ceilings of  churches.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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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Giverny lies in the Seine Valley. In geological times the river dug its valley in the tender limestone.

Now there are cliffs or steep hills on both sides of the river. When the hill faces north, it is covered by woods. When it is well oriented it used to be cultivated when Monet lived in Giverny, 100 years ago.

There were vineyards on the hills. Normandy is not a good place where to grow grapes, but our ancestors tried and made a wine which ranged between ‘almost not drinkable’ generally to ‘not too bad’ the best years.

It is not possible to judge, for it is not possible to taste it anymore. Even the eldest inhabitants of Giverny won’t tell, the vineyards disappeared before World War One. I don’t think anybody really regrets them.

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Monet’s garden at Giverny is full of roses.

It is not a proper rose garden, for there are also many other sorts of flowers, but nonetheless it is gorgeous in May and June when the roses are in bloom.

They are everywhere, weeping from the umbrella like structures, climbing on trellises, on fences, on trees, on the facade of the house, wrapped around tripods, in bunches, or among peonies and sweet rocket in the mixed borders…

All sorts of colors can be seen, pale cream, pure white, soft yellow, many pinks, red, orange… Not all of them are simple roses but many are scented. Light and delight.

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A bust of Claude Monet by the sculptor Daniel Goupil can be admired in Giverny.

Surprisingly enough, the tribute to the master of Impressionism is not exhibited on a well exposed location, in front of his home for instance. On the contrary you have to look for it to find it.

The artist wanted Monet to face the landscape he loved, the meadows and the poplars of the Seine valley.

 The bust is situated on the very spot where Monet painted several canvases.

 It is to be found on the back of the main parking lot ‘La Prairie’, slightly hidden by a big weping willow.

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Monet was 42 when he arrived in Giverny.

 Let’s say he was in his forty-third year, and he spent forty three years in Giverny. Exactly half of his life!

 When he arrived he was looking for a big house to live with his family. He was lucky enough to find this one.

He felt so happy there he never wanted to move anymore.

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