Monet’s garden at Giverny, about an hour from Paris, is a mecca for garden lovers. This garden’s most recognised feature is a painted wooden Japanese-style bridge which is draped with wisteria (a white Japanese wisteria called Wisteria floribunda ‘Shiro Noda’) and crosses the famous waterlily pond.
Monet the gardener
Claude Monet (1840-1926), the French painter whose work ‘Impression of Sunrise’ gave rise to the term Impressionism, was a keen gardener. At Giverny he worked within the existing formal rectangular layout of what was a farm house garden, filling flower beds with a symphony of colour but using fairly simple plants. He spent 40 years creating the garden and, as his reputation as both an artist and a gardener spread, he acquired some rather special plants for his garden such as Japanese peonies.
Considered bohemians, Monet and his rather large and unorthodox household, were not popular in the village and indeed their presence was actively opposed by the villagers. It is said that when Monet selected an element for his paintings such as the haystacks or poplars, the villagers threatened to destroy his subject. Frustrated Monet turned to his own garden as a subject to paint, particularly focussing on his waterlilies. He also enjoyed painting the garden near the house, the ‘Clos Normande’, from his studio.
Monet said of his garden and water lily pond “It took me time to understand my waterlilies.I had planted them for my pleasure; I cultivated them without ever thinking of painting them.A landscape doesn’t permeate one’s being in one day. And then suddenly the magical world of my pond was revealed to me. I took up my palette. Since that time I have scarcely had another model.”
By the 1890s when Monet’s art began to earn him a reliable income he could afford to employ full-time gardeners to work in the garden. One gardener was employed just to care for the lily pond.
Monet died at his home in Giverny in 1926 at 86 years of age. His house and garden, which remained in family ownership for many years, but fell into disrepair, have now been restored and are open to the public.
Visitor information
Giverny is about 70km, 2 hours drive north west of Paris on the road to Rouen. Phone: 0011 33 (16) 3251 2821. Train from Paris (Saint Lazare to Vernon) and then a bus from Vernon to Giverny. Open April to October, Tuesday to Sunday, 10am-6pm.