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Giverny – Monet's epic waterliillies

"The Waterlillies", American deciples & a sculptor's private estate

"I started to know what I wanted when I was 40, began to understand it when I was 50 and can begin to paint it when I am 60."

- Monet

 

Our excursion to Monet's home concentrates on his life in the village, on his garden and the pond that he created to paint "The Waterlilies". That series, a work of epic environmentalism for which Western art has no equivalent, absorbed the last 20 years of his life (1840-1926). 

 

Encountering the patriach's private life, at which the cemetery hints, helps us become acquainted with him. Discovering the American artists' colony that grew up around the master, and the Museum of Impressionisms (please note the plural), offspring of their presence, are additions of interest.

 

The fountains and estate of a celebrated contemporary sculptor can be part of this day as well. 

 
  • "The Waterlillies"

 

 

Pond
Other flowers bend obviously in the breeze, but waterlilies move mysteriously with the current.

     Monet's universe is indifferent to human worries. All is radiant and there is no time.


 

 

  • "Déjeuner" – in what was once the cantine of American artists, who were among the first to understand Impressionism's importance.

 

 

 

    • Continuity – a family life that this conservative patriarch did not expect  

 

 

Monet and Alice Hoschedé, his second wife

 

It so horrified Giverny villagers that his and his family's tombs are in a separate part of the graveyard.
Their story began here...

 

Unromantically, one of Paris's first department stores (on the prestigious Avenue de L'Opéra) is at the heart of that story. 

       

       

      • Costs: please CLICK

      º Entries to Monet's domaine and the Museum of Impressionism

      º Déjeuner

      º Participation to sculptor's  domaine (the context determines)

       

       

      Credits: Pond / Bill Dudley; Sculptor's garden / supplied by the artist; modern sculpture / Claude Abron

       

       

       

      Unexpected Paris guided tours