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After completion
of large-scale restoration work, Claude Monet's property in Giverny, left
by his son to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1966, has become the Claude
Monet Foundation, inaugurated in 1980.
The house, with its pink
roughcast façade, where the leader of the Impressionist School lived from
1883 to 1926, once again has the colourful decor and intimate charm of
former times. The precious collection of Japanese engravings is diplayed
in several rooms, as the master of Giverny himself had chosen to. The huge
Nympheas studio, a stone's throw from the house, has also been restored.
It houses the Foundation's Shop.
The gardens have been
replanted as they once were and offer for the admiration of visitors the
"painting from nature" which Claude Monet's contemporaries
considered one of his masterpieces.
The rectangular Clos
Normand, with archways of climbing plants entwined around brilliantly
coloured shrubs, lies before the house and studios, offering from Spring
to Autumn the palette of varying colours of the painter-gardener who was
"ecstatic about flowers".
Lastly, the Water
Garden, formed by a tributary of the Epte, lies further away, shaded by
weeping willows. With its famous Japanese Bridge, its wistarias, azaleas
and its pond, it has once more become that setting of sky and water which
inspired the pictorial universe of the water lilies.
Near the parking area
are a Cafeteria and a Seed and Flower Shop belonging to the Foundation.
WEBSITE: Claude
Monet's garden at Giverny
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