The moment I entered the fragrant and perpetual garden of those enameled red and wilted fresh flowers, the first thing I felt was the knob of eternal tranquility. It was no lesser experience than beating a hasty retreat from my disappointments and constant dissatisfaction I had from my stormy days and colder meticulousness. The past few days were darker as my thoughts were void, and there were indubitable traumatic experiences in my personal life, which I really wanted to avoid at all costs. So, the only way to slip away from them for a moment was my lovely encounter with a huge area of crimson perpetuals. Trust me, every second with them was like a more intimate touch to my soul, eradicating most of the despair. I read somewhere that if you are returning to a muddly pond, it makes no sense to even disappear for longer days despite how far you go away from it. The only way to remain unaffected is by blooming like a lotus or actually cleaning the muddiness from the clean water. So, to get this strength, I wend my way into the lap of nature, discovering the most mesmerizing flower garden. And on my return, my thoughts arose with the first glimpse of Monet’s flower paintings. Almost all the inspiration to lead my way again comes from the fragments of the humanities and spellbinding nature. And somewhere, I feel that these sections of humanities, including the inspirational stories from literature, mesmerizing artworks, humanizing sculptures, and narrational stories from the frescoes, are equally stress-liberating with an expressive approach towards reality through ancient times. Hence, to commemorate this thought, I am taking one of the most beautiful flower paintings from Monet’s gallery, The Artist’s Garden at Giverny. Why Monet? Let me give you a brief description of his visit in the words of Fernand Leger. He saw him as,
“a shortish gentleman in a Panama hat and elegant light-grey suit of English cut… He had a large white beard, a pink face, and little eyes that were bright and cheerful but with perhaps a slight hint of mistrust.”
The words literally portray him as an unstable and restless figure. The abrupt change of mood Monet, his constant dissatisfaction with himself, and his stormy emotions, set against his extreme individualism, certainly elucidate his creative process and attitude toward his work, which helps us in creating a resemblance to seeing the difficulties of our lives. To find some hope while confronting the difficulties of life, let us examine Monet’s painting, The Artist’s Garden at Giverny.
The Artist’s Garden at Giverny | Fast Knowledge
The Artist’s Garden at Giverny, located in the Musee d’Orsay, is a 1900 oil on canvas artwork by Claude Monet, sharing a glimpse of his garden at Giverny. The painting subjects purple irises with a water pond in the shadow of long trees and pathways between the flowerbeds. It is one of the famous flower paintings by the artist.
General Information About the Artwork.
1. Artist Statement.
“When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow.”
2. Subject Matter.
The subject matter of the painting is the unmistakable taste for the unusual and exotic flowers by the artist in his Giverny garden. In the same garden, he planted many dahlias and nasturtiums, but after a while, his garden became more dominated by wistaria and irises, tuberoses from Mexico, and waterlilies that looked like mother-of-pearl. In this painting, there is a flowerbed of purple irises with a water pond in the shadow of long trees and a road pathway.
It was said that Monet’s garden was so famous among everyone that many reporters even came in search of his marvelous flower beds, particularly his graceful irises.
3. Artist.
Claude-Oscar Monet, one of the most famous Impressionists, painted The Artist’s Garden at Giverny. Born in Paris on November 14th, 1840, nearly all of his impressions as a child and adolescent are linked with Le Havre, the town where his family moved in 1845. Monet did not have surroundings with an artistic background, as his father ran a grocery business and turned a deaf ear to his ambition to become an artist. Obviously, Le Havre did not have a museum collection, exhibitions, or art school, but Monet was so gifted that he powered himself with his aunt’s advice, merely painting for his pleasure. Among Monet’s most formidable impressions in Normandy was his acquaintance with Eugene Boudin, who discouraged him from concentrating on his caricatures, which brought him his initial success, urging him to become a landscape painter instead. Eugene’s most accurate words, which served as an epigraph of Monet’s work are,
“Everything that is painted directly on the spot has a strength, a power, a sureness of touch that one doesn’t find again in the studio.”
4. Date.
The painting, Artist’s Garden at Giverny, dates back to 1900.
5. Provenance.
In the mid-1880s, Monet witnessed regular sales of his artworks, securing his financial position firmly. Now, in 1890, he was finally in the position to buy a house, so he turned a plot of land into a beautiful home with the establishment of the earthly paradise- his garden at Giverny. Finally, the unmarried Claude, with his beloved and eight children, moved there, but Monet would stride off across the meadows at dawn, followed by his children to paint, setting up in front of trees and haystacks. However, as soon as the locals knew that Monet crossed their fields to paint, they would dismantle haystacks or fell poplars and charge him a toll. So, after struggling to keep his motifs as he wanted, Monet finally planned to create a pond with exotic plants in the garden, but again, the villagers protested as they thought the plants might damage their laundry (which they washed in the river) or poison their livestock grazing below the garden. And so after tremendous difficulties, Monet and his family succeeded in transforming a Norman apple orchard into a garden. As time passed, he added more plants layered in parallel borders according to colors and variety. And sooner, Monet planted dahlias, nasturtiums, waterlilies, and tuberoses. In the later period, he filled his garden with such enchanting beauty that he finally painted a series of flower paintings, including Monet’s Garden at Giverny in 1900. Also, understand that it was in 1898 that Monet participated in the exhibition at the Georges Petit Gallery, where he worked on the series of Waterlilies. And it was in the April of 1900, when he worked at Giverny, composing this masterpiece.
6. Location.
The painting is on exhibition at Musee d’Orsay, Paris.
7. Technique and Medium.
The Artist’s Garden at Giverny has a medium of oil on canvas. Monet painted it in the Post-Impressionist style. The painting has a kind of surface pattern and abstraction with diagonals and verticals harmonizing. As a result of the colors he uses, his decorative flowers are irregularly shaped. The artist captures a thousand vibrant details of color and assembles them into a mosaic of light with astounding skill and subtlety. The dabs and strokes on his canvas beak and disassemble colors, juxtaposing and overlying. Overlapping, forceful, impasto layers dominate the brushwork of Monet. Transparent but still with the quality of a tapestry, these abbreviated strokes and dabs are vibrant and flickering. There is a freedom and audacious rise of formats in his painting.
| Artist | Claude Monet |
| Year Painted | 1900 |
| Genre | Landscape art |
| Period | Post-Impressionism |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 81 x 92 cm |
| Price | Not on sale |
| Where is it housed? | Musee d’Orsay, Paris |
Now that we know a little about the composition of Monet’s Garden at Giverny, let us learn it in detailed sections.
Detailed Description of The Artist’s Garden at Giverny.
About the Artist: Claude Monet.
Claude Monet created an enigmatic and programmatic statement with his artworks. He meticulously conveyed the moist glean of the paint with earthy tonalities and lush scenes. Being an incomparable painter of the bright daylight, Claude composed snow, clouds reflection over water, and majestic flora and fauna in his artworks. In simple words, he is the painter of light. Born in modest lower middle-class circumstances, he used to spend his boyhood on the rough coast of northern France with the restless sea waves, bright light, and everchanging wind. Roaming around the beaches, dunes, and cliffs above the sea all day long, he had extraordinary capabilities of absorbing the panoramic natural views. At fifteen, he achieved a certain notoriety with his pencil caricatures of the teachers and other persons in Le Havre. At that time, he sold drawings and managed a little pocket money for himself. But sooner after his young friendship with Eugene, Monet would see him paint beach resorts, introducing the technique of plein-airisme to him. It was clear that Eugene pushed Monet to become a landscape painter. In 1900, he recalled,
“If I became a painter, it was thanks to Boudin. He was a man of infinite kindness and took it upon himself to teach me. Gradually my eyes were opened, I really understood Nature, and at the same time, I began to love it.”
Shortly after, Monet left his exams and school to become a painter. His mother, who might have supported him, died in 1857, and he was left with his father, who refused him an allowance for his desire to become a painter. So, after taking his earnings from caricatures, he headed to Paris and enrolled himself in the Academie Suisse, a small private art school. After he visited to Salon, he wrote Eugene,
“I am surrounded by a small group of landscape artists here, who would be very happy to meet you. They are real painters.”
And sooner, he met the Dutch painter Johan Barthold Jongkind, whose landscapes were admired at the Salon. His compositions basically included sunny landscapes and light and relaxed brushwork. From their first meet, he became Monet’s true master, as he recalled in 1900,
“It was he who completed the education of my eye.”
Now that we know a small piece of life about our artist, let us move to the timeline when he painted the artwork, Monet’s Garden at Giverny for a better understanding of the historical context.
Historical Background of the Painting.
Starting from the first months of the year 1899, they were specially marked with two personal tragedies of the artist. One was about a friend from his youth, and the other was about a close family member. First, Sisley summoned Monet to his deathbed and entrusted him with the care of his children, whom he could not support on his own. It was the same day that he passed away, and on the 1st of February, he gave him a final farewell. Breaking this journey in Paris, Claude and Alice Monet arrived back in the Giverny. However, he heard about the fragile health of his daughter, Suzanne, and so he went to see her. At night, Alice told her to sleep and to call her when she woke up. Sadly, in sudden moments, Suzanne had a severe attack of bronchitis, and by the evening of 6 February, Suzanne passed away. Her death really hurt Monet as he lost a stepdaughter whose few fine figure paintings earned respect. But from that day, he also faced acute despair of his wife in the wake of her child’s death. Monet’s determination was,
“So much pain and heartache- and yet I must be strong and console my loved ones.”
Despite the death of Suzanne, which was painful, Monet joined a group exhibition at George Petit’s gallery. One month after the end of the George Petit Show, it was Paul Durand Ruel’s turn to present a small group exhibition. Monet, Pissaro, Renoir, and Sisley were lined up, who could bring good commercial success. I am not putting much on the event as there is a lot more to go for the artwork for which we are here. I am just telling you a series of facts that enormously affected the personal and artisanal life of Monet.
In the summer of 1899, Monet began to paint his famous Waterlily Pond series. In these canvases, there were comparatively larger lilies arrayed in the successive layers, jostling for space with reflections over the water pond. This small pond is like a colored microcosm with a perfection of images over it. Two of the most famous artworks from this series were Luncheon on the Grass and the Woman in the Garden. I might write a separate article on the Waterlilies series as I can’t conclude this most famous series of Monet in this brief section.
Then, in the autumn of 1899, Monet traveled a lot, and it was at this time that he took his first of three long working visits to London. However, he returned in 1900 because of his desire to see his younger son Michel, who had taken lodgings there in the spring. Now, there is a lack of correspondence between the couple during this period, which accounts for our lack of relative information. But we do know that they left for France on or around 15 September, and they stayed at the Savoy Hotel. And it was this time when he certainly started work on the first five canvases dated 99. As part of the London series, these paintings marked the beginning, and in the clearest of the five, two trains are crossing Charing Cross Bridge simultaneously, their presence revealed by plumes of smoke. The arches of Westminster Bridge can be seen behind Charing Cross Bridge in the most legible of the five paintings. With its thin spire, the Clock Tower flanks the Victoria Tower, which dominates the Palace of Westminster on the right. The first visit to London lasted over a month. On 5 November, Charles Durand Ruel went to Giverny to paint eleven Thames pictures and seven water lilies. So far, none of this last group has been completed, but five or six were close.
In between these events, Monet painted this artwork, The Artist’s Garden at Giverny, roughly after his return to Giverny from London in 1900. Also, it is worth keeping in mind that these water lilies and irises are recognized today as emblems of the Belle Epoque. However, in the 1900s, they were not perceived in this way. One of the critics, Gaston Bachelard, wrote in 1952 in Verve,
“A philosopher, dreaming before one of Monet’s water scenes, might dare to invent a dislectic of the iris and the lily, a dialectic of the upright leaf and the leaf that is calmly, quietly, weightily resting on the water. Such dialectics as these are proper to aquatic plants: one seeks to rise up, driven by some mysterious revolt against its native element, and the other remains faithful to its origin… Since the day Claude Monet first looked at a water lily, the lilies of the Ile-de-France have grown more proud and more beautiful.”
Understanding the Meaning of Monet’s Garden at Giverny.
Indeed, Monet showed his fascination with the garden, or should I term it as floral fireworks. Maybe the events that followed the personal life of Monet affected him to paint the peace and tranquility of the flowers. One of the significant characteristics of the flowers from the garden of Claude is that none of them are overgrown or choke each other. Indeed they show the perfect arrangement with better space management. The painting shows the same benevolence and peace, which the artist had while he glowed them. At last, it is not wrong to say that Claude owes an incredible debt to these flowers as if they were his mentor. Whatever the lesson is, a plot of earth artfully sown can teach and shed the man’s character, humility, and career.
Subject Matter and Dominant Elements.
The painting showcases flower beds of irises with a pathway to walk, surrounded by long trees and water with reflection over it. Monet used light and color in such a way that they frequently became almost an end in themselves, resulting in a disappearing harmonious perception of Nature. Since he remained in isolation with little contact with the creative partners, he showed a prolific series of works depicting all the seasons of the year. Though the subject of Monet remains similar, lighting varies. Here in this painting, the lightning is the hero, (which is dimmer towards flower beds and slightly lighter towards the water pond and pathway), dictating its own laws and coloring the objects in different ways. The Giverny garden, which Monet showed here, is mesmerizing, with different paths to walk around and enough space to absorb everything in your eyes. Though the anatomical figure of the flowers is not clear, the flowers bloom merrily.
Now that we know most of the part of the composition let us move to the final section of our article.
Formal Analysis of The Artist’s Garden at Giverny.
1. Line.
Claude used a profusion of vertical and diagonal lines to make this painting dynamic. The two brown pathways are diagonal along with the flower beds, depicting motion and endlessness in the image, whereas the long trunk of the trees represents tranquility and stability. The tree leaves arrangement, highlighted by red or oranges also forms a diagonal plane, leaving no place to exclude from the motion in the artwork.
2. Space.
Monet used close space with the flower bed arrangement and the tree shade over the artwork, but it is not much in proximity, instead, it is spacious but at the same time, intimate. The long trunks of trees are at a distance, causing a better view of the perspective and fauna of the painting.
3. Color Analysis.
Monet balances the color harmony with the choice of colors in the artwork. He combined the use of cool colors like blue, green, and purple with earthly warm colors to depict pathways, reddish-brown highlights over trees, and reflections over the water pond.
Conclusion and Opinions.
Monet remained an impressionist with the use of spots of colors and pure tints, albeit modulated. Every single brushstroke of his conveyed emotion with his passion for painting. In The Artist’s Garden at Giverny, we look at his peace and love towards his garden. One of the great journalists from Excelsior in 1920 described the whole course of his career in a few words; which are exactly precise and couldn’t be more.
“Advise them to paint as they can and as much as they can without being afraid of poor results… If their painting does not improve of its own accord, then nothing can be done… And I could alter nothing. The techniques change, but art remains the same: it is the free and emotional interpretation of Nature.”
Resources.
- Claude Monet by Christoph Heinrich.
- Monet: A Retrospective by Claude Monet, Edited by Charles F. Stuckey.
- Monet or The Triumph of Impressionism by Daniel Wildenstein.
- Monet, Published by Grange Books.
- Featured Image: The Artist’s Garden at Giverny by Claude Monet; Musee d’Orsay.
Frequently Asked Questions.
Claude Monet painted The Artist’s Garden at Giverny in 1900 after his return from London to Giverny. The scene depicts Monet’s garden, exhibiting an excellent use of light and color to create a harmonious perception of nature.
The Artist’s Garden at Giverny has little historical context and no formal meaning by the artist. However, the arrangement of flowers and the instances Monet faced during this time suggest that the painting was created to depict peace and tranquility.
Monet’s Garden at Giverny subjects purple irises with a water pond, long trees, and pathways.
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