Monet's home, gardens make lasting impression

Sunday, April 4th, 2010 at 6:00 am

1270360903 45 Monet's home, gardens make lasting impression

The Grande Allee leading to Claude Monet’s home in Giverny, France. Photo/Karen Kenyon.

Paris had been cold. Dark figures in coats and scarves filled the streets. But the day we set off for Giverny to see the gardens and home of Claude Monet, magic, color, and spring arrived.

Even as I traveled by train the 40 miles from Paris to the village of Vernon, near Giverny, tears began to fill my eyes. Something about this trip, this excursion into beauty was touching me in an unexpected way — as if my heart were about to open.

This can’t be real, I thought. A lifetime of seeing Monet’s images in high and low places — and a few actual Monet paintings in museums, such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. While in Paris, I’d viewed more Monets at the Musee D’Orsay.

I had visited homes of famous writers, and found that exciting and rewarding — to step on the floorboards in Dickens’ house, and know he probably heard the same squeak — or to gaze out the upstairs nursery window in the Bronte parsonage, and see the moors as Charlotte, Emily, and Anne did. But the idea of visiting the great Claude Monet’s garden and home — actually seeing his inspiration and creation — seemed overwhelming.

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Road to Giverney

Less than an hour from Paris we were in Vernon. Just outside the train station we found buses to Giverny, as well as taxis and even bicycles. We boarded a bus.

Only a short few minutes ride and we were at Giverny.

Walking from the bus we passed the American Museum, full of paintings by the expatriate American Impressionists who lived and painted in Giverny before the start of World War I. They wanted to be near their hero and model, Claude Monet, and to experience the shimmering light and misty landscapes of his paintings. (In truth Monet was not always happy with this group of followers who painted his garden and neighborhood).

Though I hoped to see this museum at some point, my interest was with the master himself. First, I wanted to see his home and environs.

Walking through the gift shop (at one time his water lily studio), it was fun to glance at books, posters, T-shirts, all of which I hoped to look at more closely later. And then I saw the door leading to the garden.

Monet’s world
I stepped through it like Dorothy entering the Emerald City; I entered Monet’s world. If life was in color before, I’d hardly noticed. It felt as if a veil had been lifted from my eyes.

A palette of moss green, new-grass green and waxen dark green mixed with pink tulips, yellow daisies, purple irises and small lavender blossoms. The garden shone with intensity, fresh as a dream. Colors were scattered in the flowerbeds, like splashes of paint. And, as in Monet’s paintings, there seemed to be no horizon. The garden was all around and above us.

The willows and poplars laced above, and Monet’s pink and green house filled the space to our right. Bright yellow flowering forsythia bushes filled in the middle space, while pink Busy Lizzie flowers encircled a nearby tree. There was nowhere to look that wasn’t full of color and reflecting light.

Later I read that Monet chose the area because of the way the surrounding hills diffused the light. It was indeed a softer, less harsh light — a painter’s or photographer’s light.

I felt like Linnea in the children’s book “Linnea in Monet’s Garden” by Cristina Bjork and Lena Anderson. I was a child in wonderland and at the same time a mere mortal in paradise. The surroundings felt healing — as if no matter the pain or sadness or problem a person brought with them, being in the garden would help.

The long archway, the Grande Allee, directly in front of the house defined and divided the Clos Normand garden. The green of climbing roses, not yet in bloom, covered the archway. We walked all the paths, noting and sometimes photographing the tiniest bright blooms and shuddering, brilliant bushes.

Home at last
It was time to look inside the pink house. Appropriately so, Monet had painted each of the eight rooms a beautiful light color, so that the tones suffused the room. The yellow dining room has not only yellow walls, but also a yellow table, chairs, cupboard, even yellow-and-blue dishes that Monet especially designed. (It’s also filled with his collection of Japanese prints).

Color saturated Monet’s life: The blue kitchen has blue patterned walls, blue tile in back of the stove, a blue table and cupboards.

Monet lived here with Alice Raingo Hoschede, his second wife, and their collective eight children. The couple hosted dinner gatherings that included artists, such as Auguste Rodin, Pierre Bonnard, and Paul Cezanne — and visiting writers included the symbolist poet, Paul Valery.

During the 43 years Monet was in Giverny, he used the garden as inspiration and subject. He also painted nearby scenes — the haystacks, the poplars along the river.

Monet's home, gardens make lasting impression