The large window of Monet’s first studio at Giverny looks like an eye scrutinizing the flowers of the garden in order to paint them.
It opens onto the little rose garden, a corner that is rarely explored by the visitors of Giverny.
See two posts below the view from the inside, giving the illusion of a painting.
Monet was 76 when he decided he needed a new studio. This one is actually the third one he built on the premises.
After having turned a former barn with western light into his first studio, errected the second one with a big window on the northern facade, Monet decided he wanted the light to fall from the sky, and not from any other direction.
This is why the third studio has huge skylights. The entire roof is made out of glass.
Sixty replicas, that is to say very good copies, have just been hung on the walls of Monet’s first studio at Giverny, making the place even more atmospheric.
Untill last year, visitors could see prints on canvas on the walls. The new copies are now real paintings on canvas. They were made by a French gallery, galerie Trubetskoy in Paris. The chosen pictures were all in Monet’s own collection of his own work in his late years. These were the paintings he loved most and didn’t want to sell.
In addition, all the details of the studio have been checked on old photographs to be as accurate as possible. The result is stunning and really moving.
This is a view of Claude Monet standing in his first studio amidst his favorite canvases. The light of the afternoon is almost palpable.
This room located in his main house at Giverny was turned into his sitting-room after 1890.
When Monet became successful, he built a new house in the corner of his garden, where he moved his studio. He had now a well lit large room to work in and to store his paintings. The former studio became a place where he used to have a liquor after lunch, where he would sit to read a gardening book or a novel by Maupassant. Monet also used to write many letters.
The paintings for sale where displayed in the second studio whereas he kept the ones he cherished too much to sell them in the first studio.
The picture was made in springtime according to the tulips behind Monet. The photo reveals how much the painter loved flowers. There were at least six vases in his studio on this day!