Giverny Automatic translate

The picturesque Norman village of Giverny, an hour’s drive from Paris (75 kilometers in the direction of Rouen), is known for the famous Claude Monet lived and painted in it for more than forty years.

Pictures by Claude Monet

The master of painting, traveling in train by the village of Giverny in 1883, was deeply impressed by its beauty. Love for this place made Monet soon return there and rent a house with an adjoining plot, which he subsequently bought out and began arranging his garden. Having married for the second time, Monet settled in the estate in 1893 with his large family - his second wife, his two sons and six children from his first marriage.

After the move of Monet, already a well-known painter outside of France, representatives of American Impressionism stretched to Giverny, whose canvases are now exhibited in the local Museum of Impressionism. The talented Claude Monet, possessing the delicate taste of a true connoisseur of living beauty, turned the provincial town into a true paradise with his own hands, which later inspired him to create more than 100 beautiful paintings!

Over time, Monet decided to expand the territory of his garden, adding to the initial 1 hectare of land an additional plot across the road where the Water Garden with a pond and water lilies was arranged.

A cozy house with a delicate pink facade, entwined with a vineyard, and dark green shutters is buried in a magnificent garden of author’s design by Claude Monet! Monet approached the creation of his garden with high artistic skill, as if applying colorful flower strokes to the canvas, dividing them, as if on a palette, with narrow garden alleys! Flower beds, flower beds and front gardens of irises, pansies, roses, poppies, lilies, azaleas, beautiful shady arches, a bamboo grove, a pond with delicate water lilies and an elegant Japanese bridge serve as a living work of art, one of the Master’s masterpieces!

During his life, gardening for Monet grew from an amateur interest into a category of serious hobby, accompanied by professional cooperation with flower growers and nurseries. Monet’s friends from artists (Cézan, Renoir, Matisse and others), visiting the owner of the estate in Giverny, brought rare plants and seeds as a gift.

The garden was for Monet a muse, an art studio, and a home-made palette of colors! A pond with floating water lilies becomes for Monet one of the favorite objects of the image, which the artist painted again and again. The owner of the estate himself admitted his total passion for painting and gardening: “En dehors de la peinture et du jardinage, je ne suis bonrien!”

Already on the slope of his life, Monet realized a grandiose plan - he created a circular panorama of eight panels with the image of his favorite water lilies. The artist’s life in the town of Giverny proceeded in constant work, surrounded by relatives and friends. The master was enthusiastically engaged in his favorite business and during his lifetime he was awarded recognition of his work!

Monet lived a good, calm life and died at 86 in a beloved estate. The artist was buried in a local cemetery.

Forty years later, in 1966, Monet’s possessions were transferred by the will of his son Michel to the Academy of Fine Arts, and in June 1980, after restoration, the famous estate opened its doors to the public. It attracts many tourists who are partial to Monet’s work and the beauty of nature. Indeed, it is rather difficult to know the nature of Monet’s genius without visiting his house and garden.

Monet’s paintings are exhibited in the local Museum of Impressionism (300 meters from the estate), in the Vernon Museum (4 kilometers from Giverny), as well as in Parisian fine art museums - Marmottan-Monet, Orangerie and Orsay.