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Lot Essay
'Elusive and mysterious, though fully measurable and humane [Monet's paintings at Giverny] assert that [the artist's] physical remove to Giverny did not mean a relaxation of his intellectual and aesthetic powers. On the contrary, the time he spent observing his flowers, trees, and pond engendered a profound refocusing of those strengths as a personal imperative, largely in response to the pressures of the very contemporaneity he appeared to have abandoned. For while they may seem to be about nothing other than the beauty he found in his own backyard, these... pictures were actually created in the midst of conflict and turmoil - the death of family members, his own threatened blindness, the perceived erosion of aesthetic principles in French Art, the abandonment of nature, and worst of all perhaps, the horrors of the First World War. They encapsulate an entire era as seen and felt by an individual who by 1900 had become one of the world's most celebrated painters' (P. Hayes Tucker, 'The Revolution in the Garden: Monet in the Twentieth Century', in Monet in the 20th Century, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Royal Academy of Art, London, 1998, p. 14).
Monet had moved to Giverny in 1883, but bought the house and the land surrounding it seven years later, travelling extensively during this first stay without showing the deep attachment to his property which he developed in the 20th Century. The most important changes in the garden started at the beginning of the 1890s, when 'the fruit trees, berry bushes, potato patches, and vegetable rows were replaced by tens of thousands of flowers, bulbs, and plants laid out in carefully arranged geometric beds, many of which were elevated slightly above ground level for easier tending' (ibidem, p. 16). In March 1893 Monet applied to the Prefect of the Département for the permission to dig a pond, which, as he stated in his letter, would provide "something agreeable and for the pleasure of the eyes and also for the purpose of having subjects to paint". The Japanese bridge was built in 1895, and by 1910 the whole property had changed dramatically. 'Just as he tinkered with the water garden, so did Monet play with the plantings in the flower garden, adding and subtracting species so that it was never exactly the same from year to year. In fact, it changed in appearance almost every week from spring to fall; Monet orchestrated the blooming cycles so that one species began to flower when another was passing, using nature's magical ordering system to create an evolving array of color, light, and texture, much like his paintings' (ibidem, p. 17).
Monet started the first series of the Maison vue du jardin aux roses (W. 1944-1951) in 1922, taking up a position under the lime trees south-west of his house. For the present oil which belongs to his second series of Maisons (W. 1953-1958), Monet changed his viewpoint, choosing the front view of the house, with its window framed by the Virginia creeper and the roof painted in violet-grey, to convey the blue of the slates. The house, almost buried under blooming roseraies, appears between two banks of rose-bushes, at the foot of which stand clumps of irises. As Wildenstein commented, 'The relative precision of the foreground objects and the perfect composition can be explained by a significant improvement in the artist's eyesight, evidence of which is found in the letters he wrote in the summer of 1925. These are the paintings to which Paul Valéry refers when writing the same evening about his visit to Giverny on 7 September 1925: 'Il nous montre ses dernières toiles. Étranges touffes de roses saisies sous un ciel bleu...' (op. cit., p. 938).
Monet had moved to Giverny in 1883, but bought the house and the land surrounding it seven years later, travelling extensively during this first stay without showing the deep attachment to his property which he developed in the 20th Century. The most important changes in the garden started at the beginning of the 1890s, when 'the fruit trees, berry bushes, potato patches, and vegetable rows were replaced by tens of thousands of flowers, bulbs, and plants laid out in carefully arranged geometric beds, many of which were elevated slightly above ground level for easier tending' (ibidem, p. 16). In March 1893 Monet applied to the Prefect of the Département for the permission to dig a pond, which, as he stated in his letter, would provide "something agreeable and for the pleasure of the eyes and also for the purpose of having subjects to paint". The Japanese bridge was built in 1895, and by 1910 the whole property had changed dramatically. 'Just as he tinkered with the water garden, so did Monet play with the plantings in the flower garden, adding and subtracting species so that it was never exactly the same from year to year. In fact, it changed in appearance almost every week from spring to fall; Monet orchestrated the blooming cycles so that one species began to flower when another was passing, using nature's magical ordering system to create an evolving array of color, light, and texture, much like his paintings' (ibidem, p. 17).
Monet started the first series of the Maison vue du jardin aux roses (W. 1944-1951) in 1922, taking up a position under the lime trees south-west of his house. For the present oil which belongs to his second series of Maisons (W. 1953-1958), Monet changed his viewpoint, choosing the front view of the house, with its window framed by the Virginia creeper and the roof painted in violet-grey, to convey the blue of the slates. The house, almost buried under blooming roseraies, appears between two banks of rose-bushes, at the foot of which stand clumps of irises. As Wildenstein commented, 'The relative precision of the foreground objects and the perfect composition can be explained by a significant improvement in the artist's eyesight, evidence of which is found in the letters he wrote in the summer of 1925. These are the paintings to which Paul Valéry refers when writing the same evening about his visit to Giverny on 7 September 1925: 'Il nous montre ses dernières toiles. Étranges touffes de roses saisies sous un ciel bleu...' (op. cit., p. 938).