Normandy- Antoinette in Monet's GardenOct 17, 2004
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| At the age of 8, my sense of visual asthetics were open to the vast beauties offered by Spiderman and Marvel (DC being shunned as crude and undeveloped, Garfield and Odie, Scrooge and Donald, Inspector gadget and Astro boy. Then Derek one evening bought home book for me called "Linea in Monet's Garden", where a young girl is taken by her kindly elderly neighbour, approriately named Mr Bloom, to visit Monet's garden in Giverny. The book is more than a story, it is a botanical and historical excursion into the works and life of Monet with photos of the painter in this garden and his paintings of the garden as well as images of the modern day garden. This book became a treasure of my shelf along with "The Ship's Cat", "Mari-Louise's Heyday" and "Samson and the Church Mice". Derek and I agreed long ago that we had to go to Monet's garden together. Today we did. It is of course deep autumn here, so I expected the garden to be quite unadorned with the rich profusion of blossoms portrayed in the book and seen in paintings like "Jardin en Fleurs". The delightful shock came that in fact flowers abounded in the most joyful riots of colour. There were flowers larger than my head bristling with spiky petals of red. Other were variagated with yellows and orange. Passing under the road, which Derek did not know of, we came out in the water lilly garden. Here were Ninpheas et Pont Japonais which Monet loved to paint in every season right til the very end. Here the boat which is in so many of the garden party scenes. The sheer size of the gardens struck Derek most of all and indeed the rustic lines of luscious foliage struck me also. The house I recognised instantly as we were wandering around Giverny. The distinctive pink with green trimmings was know to me from the book although I have not read it for many years. The walls were crammed with the Japanese wood blook prints of all kinds (with the exception of Shunga, I noted). Derek followed the prints through the orderly and coloured coded rooms of pink, yellow and cornflour blue. It would be gross breach of style now, but it seemed perfect for the summer house for an impressionist, decendent of the fauves. |
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