THE HISTORY OF GIVERNY Claude Monet’s house and garden

THE HISTORY OF GIVERNY

Claude Monet’s house and garden

CLOS NORMAND AND THE WATER GARDEN

When he moved to Giverny on 29 April 1883, gardening became a passion for Claude Monet. First the Clos Normand, then from 1890 the water garden. With the wise advice of Georges Truffaut and his two friends Gustave Caillebotte and Octave Mirbeau, who were both experienced gardeners, Monet developed original gardens. Monet devoured gardening catalogues and visited plant exhibitions and botanical gardens. The gardens he created were reminiscent of his art - full of movement and with light that constantly quivering colours.

Gradually abandoned after the artist's death, the gardens were restored from 1977 and were opened to the public for the first time on 1 June 1980. From April to October, the gardens display an impressive succession of flowering plants. Bulbs, annuals, biennials, spring and summer perennials, water lilies, floweringshrubs, rose bushes, peonies and autumn foliage and perennials: thousands of plant varieties set the rhythm of life in these amazing gardens. Visitors an fully immerse themselves in the artist's imagination.

JAPANESE PRINTS

THE GREAT COLLECTION OF CLAUDE MONET

Another of Monet's passions was Japanese prints, which he collected from the 1870s onwards. These are also on display in the house. Monet and his friends of the Impressionist movement had a great fascination with the culture and artistic expression of the Japanese Empire. The Giverny collection is also of historical interest because it has been preserved virtually intact.

THE HOUSE AND PRIVATE LIFE OF CLAUDE MONET

The estate was bequeathed by Michel Monet to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1966 and it was restored between 1977 and 1980 under the direction of Gérald Van der Kemp, a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Here the visitor can relive Monet's life in his large family. Monet himself had two sons and his second wife, Alice Hoschedé, had six children. On the ground floor, beyond the small blue lounge or reading room, the door opens onto the primitive studio, which was converted into a living room when Monet set up a new studio separate from the house. Upstairs is ClaudeMonet and Alice's bedroom. The last room on the upper floor is Blanche Hoschedé-Monet's bedroom, which was opened to the public for the first time in 2014.

Salon atelier - Maison et jardins de Claude Monet Giverny

Salon atelier - Copyright - Maison et jardins de Claude Monet Giverny

On the ground floor, the visitor enters the inviting dining room, decorated in two shades of yellow. The kitchen, covered in Rouen-blue tiles, was the hub of the house; the meals served in the artist's home were exceptional and did not tolerate slackness.

Dinning room - Copyright - Maison et jardins de Claude Monet Giverny

THE BEGINNINGS

On 3 May 1883, Claude Monet signed the lease for the house he had discovered in Giverny. Situated between Normandy and the Ile-de-France and only three kilometres from Vernon.

At any time of year, as soon as you step through the little gate on the main street of Giverny, you feel as if you are entering paradise. It is a colourful, fragrant kingdom of flowers. Each month is adorned with its flowers, from lilacs and irises to chrysanthemums and nasturtiums. The azaleas, hydrangeas, foxgloves, hollyhocks, forget-me-nots, violets, lush flowers and more modest flowers mingle and bloom one after another on this land. The roses are scattered in the ground, in bushes, hedges and trellises, climbing up the walls or clinging to the pillars and arches of the central path. There are rare plants and more ordinary ones that are just as beautiful, simple roses, clumps of sweet grasses, bright colours and paler tones, all flowers singing a summer harmony and making you think of a landscape full of happiness.

But the estate harbours another floral splendour. To see them all, you have to cross the tracks and enter a second garden: the water garden. The small river Epte used to flow under a canopy of leaves, and Monet enjoyed taking his guests in a small boat on the river all the way to the Seine. Monet obtained permission from the Eure Prefecture to divert a branch of the Epte, the Rû, and to create ponds. This administrative act led to his masterpieces. After diverting the watercourse into excavated ponds, Monet designed his garden and flowerbeds with the willows trailing their green curls, bamboo sprouting from the ground and rhododendron flowerbeds lining the paths. Monet also planted water lilies in the ponds, their roots floating in the water, over which they spread their large leaves, blooming with white and pink or mauve and green flowers.

GIVERNY 1883 - 1926

Monet had many long, difficult years struggling to establish his artwork, after periods of poverty and scathing criticism, family dramas - his first wife Camille died in 1879 - and many moves

On 29 April 1883, Monet moved to Giverny, one day before the death of his friend Manet

RELATED FAMILY

The elongated house, clad in pink plaster,provided an ideal environment for creativity. His passion for plants soon blossomed in the unique garden. The house was large enough to accommodate his large mixed family, ahead of their time, with the six children of his partner (and wife in 1892) Alice Hoschedé and his own two sons Jean and Michel.

FRIENDS

His closest friends liked to take the train or drive from Paris to spend the day in Giverny. This tradition was followed by Gustave Geffroy, Georges Clemenceau, Camille Pissarro, Octave Mirbeau, Auguste Rodin, Auguste Renoir, Sacha Guitry, art dealer Durand-Ruel and his wife, Gardener Georges Truffaut, Monet's Japanese friends and collectors Kojiro Matsukata and his niece Madame Kuroki, who sent Monet tree peonies and rare bulbs from Japan, and even Gustave Caillebotte, who sailed his boat from Petit Gennevilliers on the Seine.

At 11.30 am, everyone gathered in the dining room, whose walls, ceiling and furniture were painted in two shades of yellow.

GARDEN

After dinner, Monet traditionally took his guests into the garden. From spring to autumn, they could enjoy the spectacle of a lush garden in constant motion, changing from week to week with successive blooms. People strolled along the central path, careful not to step on the nasturtiums that Monet liked to let creep across the ground. After crossing the railway tracks, visitors were delighted to discover the water garden. The small Japanese bridge with the wisteria spreading the scent of early summer, the weeping willows, the lush leaves of the floating petasites topped with the wood of the bamboo, the azaleas and the irises formed an ideal backdrop for the water lilies.

Towards the end of his life, the corolla of water lilies kept tempting Monet to push the boundaries between water and air, the light and the invisible. He never ceased to be obsessed with water and wrote about it to Geffroy on 22 June 1890: "I am again trying to capture what cannot be captured: Water with rippling grass in the background ... It is admirable to see, but it can drive one crazy to attempt such a thing. Oh well! I always throw myself into things like that!" There, in his water garden, he gathered his pictorial legacy - the huge water lily painting "Les Grandes Décora6ons de Nymphéas", on display at the Orangerie Museum in Paris.

Copyright: Maison et jardins de Claude Monet Giverny

1926 - 1977

THE DEATH OF CLAUDE MONET

Monet died in Giverny on 5 December 1926. His coffin was carried to the cemetery by his gardeners during the simple funeral he had wished for, attended by his family, some villagers, Georges Clemenceau and some artist friends. His eldest son, Jean, had died in 1914, leaving his younger son Michel to take over the estate, the paintings there and the large collection of Japanese prints, that Claude Monet had collected. Michel Monet preferred to go on safari in Africa, and the family home did not suit him. Instead, he built a house about 30 kilometres from Giverny.

BLANCHE HOSCHEDÉ-MONET

Only Blanche Hoschedé-Monet, the daughter of Alice Monet and her first husband, and the widow of Jean, maintained the estate in the artist's spirit, with the help of the head gardener Lebret. In Monet's day, seven gardeners were employed full-time all year round. After his death, nature gradually took control and eventually erased any memory of the artist.

LEGACY TO THE ACADÉMIE DES BEAUX-ARTS

In 1966, at the age of 88, Michel Monet died in a car accident. Having no direct heir, he left the estate and what remained of the collections at Giverny to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in his will. Jacques Carlu, a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and architect of the Palais de Chaillot, lacked the financial means to carry out a proper restoration project. He had the roof re-roofed, protected the already quite damaged prints and moved what was left of the painting collection to the Marmottan Museum,

GÉRALD VAN DER KEMP

When Jacques Carlu died in 1977, the Académie des Beaux-Arts asked Gérald Van der Kemp, a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts who was basking in the glory of his successful restoration work at Versailles, to help save Giverny. His report told of the scale of the task: "The buildings [...] were

The buildings [...] were dilapidated, most of the wooden panels and parquet flooring were rotten, the furniture was broken and covered with mould

The furniture was broken and covered with mould, and plants were growing up through the floorboards in the large studio." The garden was neglected: The Clos Normand was overgrown with brambles and weeds, including the enormous perennial Maximilian sunflower (Helianthus Maximiliani), numerous trees were dead, the greenhouses had no glass and the plant stands and trellises were completely rusted. The water garden was in a pitiful state, the Japanese bridge was rotting in black, choked water.

1977-2012

GIVERNY SPONSORSHIP

First of all, sponsors had to be found. Most of the funding came from the United States of America through the Versailles Foundation Inc Claude Monet-Giverny, which Gérald Van der Kemp and his wife Florence had set up to help the Château de Versailles. Across the Atlantic, Monet's fame was such that generous donations began to pour in.

WORKS

The monumental works spanned three years. The house and studios were restored and the furniture replaced. The precious Japanese prints were also carefully restored and re-hung on the walls. Under the direction of Gérald Van der Kemp and Gilbert Vahé, a young gardener, the gardens regained their identity. The dead trees were cut down, the beds were completely dug up, the paths were relaid and an identical replica of the Japanese bridge was built, with the wisteria, which Monet had retaining the wisteria that Monet had planted. The banks of the pond were reinforced with rat-proof sheet piling and a well was dug to provide fresh water in which the water lilies could bloom. The plant list, the garden plans and the numerous photographs provided by Jean Marie Toulgouat - including two autochrome series - taken in Monet's time, were used to guide the selection of the beds and the design. Friends donated many seeds, but what should they be planted in? Styrofoam containers were chosen. There was no money for stakes, so Gilbert Vahé replaced them with concrete poles; once painted green, the illusion was complete. To recreate the colours of the flowerbeds, they drew on the memories of André Devillers.

In 1976, a complete list of the plants ordered by Monet was found when a fire destroyed all the archives! Fortunately, there was a detailed description written by Georges Truffaut for an article in Jardinage magazine in 1924. The family's memories also helped identify some plants, such as a list of irises, and which plants Monet liked or disliked, recorded in a chapter of the book Claude Monet: Ce mal connu, written by Jean-Pierre Hoschedé, Claude Monet's adopted son. The Japanese Princess Matsukata, who had sent plants to Giverny in her youth, also provided valuable help. Some cultivars had disappeared from the catalogues of the nurseries and were replaced by others that were similar. And since the garden was to welcome visitors, the paths were widened, concreted and bordered with bricks.

PUBLIC OPENING

On 1 June 1980, the House and Gardens of Claude Monet opened its doors to the public. It is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Normandy. Every year, between the end of March and the beginning of November, some 500,000 enthusiastic visitors come to visit.

HUGUES R. GALL

Since 2008, Hugues R. Gall, a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and a State Councillor, has held the position of Director of Claude Monet's House and Gardens - Giverny. Since his election as Director of Claude Monet's House and Gardens, Hugues R. Gall has embarked on a series of restorations: the studio/lounge in 2011, Claude Monet's bedroom and washroom in 2013 and Blanche Hoschedé-Monet's bedroom in 2014.