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Lot Essay
Monet's passion for his gardens is legendary-they constituted a major theme in his work throughout his career. Monet often turned his attention to the flowers in his own gardens, first at Argenteuil, then at Vétheuil and finally at Giverny where the garden and its pond became his single focus
Monet moved to Giverny in 1883 and lived there for nearly seven years before he purchased the house and grounds where he began to develop and expand its gardens. By 1893, Monet had extended the property acquiring a parcel of land that would become the site of his water-lily pond, and was employing a full-time head gardener and five assistants, an indication of how extensive his estate had become and how much attention it required. Eventually, to preserve his precious water lilies during the winter months and to grow plant from seeds, Monet had a large greenhouse built as well as a sizable structure for the gardeners in the northwest corner of his garden. On the second floor of this building he made a studio, where the present painting was executed. Just as he tinkered with the water garden, so did Monet play with the plantings in the flower garden, adding and substracting 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 colour, light and texture, much like his own paintings.
Monet was not the only painter among the Impressionists who was an avid gardener. Gustave Caillebotte, with whom Monet was especially close in the 1870s, was an accomplished horticulturalist, and Monet often sought his friend's advice about flowers. During these years, their camaraderie as members of the same artistic circle was enhanced by their mutual passion for gardening. Monet even undertook a series of four paintings of chrysanthemums, beginning in November 1896, likely a direct homage to Caillebotte, who had just died two years earlier.
This series, which includes the present painting, departs radically from Monet's earlier images of chrysanthemums painted in 1878. First imported from China in the eighteenth century, chrysanthemums were very much in vogue during the 1870s, a fact which might have been originally a commercial consideration for Monet at a time when finances were low. Monet's decision to paint chrysanthemums once again, however, must be seen in light of the artist's own penchant for collecting japanese prints. Here, the flowers are freed from all still-life and domestic accoutrements. These flowers were closely associated with Japan, a connection underscored in several impressionist paintings in which flowers appear in the blue-and-white japonisme vases popular at the time. In addition, by the mid-1890s, Monet was actively collecting Hokusai's series of Large flowers, as confirmed by a letter written by the artist to Maurice Joyant in 1896: "Thank you for having thought of me for the Hokusai flowers. You don't mention the poppies, and that is the important one, for I have the iris, the chrysanthemums, the peonies and the convulus" (quoted in J. House, Monet: Nature into art, New Haven, 1986, p. 43).
The complete series of the four Chrysanthèmes (Fig 1-5) were first exhibited at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1898, an important exhibition which provoked considerable praise, so much in fact that Le Gaulois published a special Sunday supplement that reprinted major reviews of the artist's previous shows beginning with his huge retrospective with Rodin held in 1889 (Fig.1).
Monet moved to Giverny in 1883 and lived there for nearly seven years before he purchased the house and grounds where he began to develop and expand its gardens. By 1893, Monet had extended the property acquiring a parcel of land that would become the site of his water-lily pond, and was employing a full-time head gardener and five assistants, an indication of how extensive his estate had become and how much attention it required. Eventually, to preserve his precious water lilies during the winter months and to grow plant from seeds, Monet had a large greenhouse built as well as a sizable structure for the gardeners in the northwest corner of his garden. On the second floor of this building he made a studio, where the present painting was executed. Just as he tinkered with the water garden, so did Monet play with the plantings in the flower garden, adding and substracting 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 colour, light and texture, much like his own paintings.
Monet was not the only painter among the Impressionists who was an avid gardener. Gustave Caillebotte, with whom Monet was especially close in the 1870s, was an accomplished horticulturalist, and Monet often sought his friend's advice about flowers. During these years, their camaraderie as members of the same artistic circle was enhanced by their mutual passion for gardening. Monet even undertook a series of four paintings of chrysanthemums, beginning in November 1896, likely a direct homage to Caillebotte, who had just died two years earlier.
This series, which includes the present painting, departs radically from Monet's earlier images of chrysanthemums painted in 1878. First imported from China in the eighteenth century, chrysanthemums were very much in vogue during the 1870s, a fact which might have been originally a commercial consideration for Monet at a time when finances were low. Monet's decision to paint chrysanthemums once again, however, must be seen in light of the artist's own penchant for collecting japanese prints. Here, the flowers are freed from all still-life and domestic accoutrements. These flowers were closely associated with Japan, a connection underscored in several impressionist paintings in which flowers appear in the blue-and-white japonisme vases popular at the time. In addition, by the mid-1890s, Monet was actively collecting Hokusai's series of Large flowers, as confirmed by a letter written by the artist to Maurice Joyant in 1896: "Thank you for having thought of me for the Hokusai flowers. You don't mention the poppies, and that is the important one, for I have the iris, the chrysanthemums, the peonies and the convulus" (quoted in J. House, Monet: Nature into art, New Haven, 1986, p. 43).
The complete series of the four Chrysanthèmes (Fig 1-5) were first exhibited at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1898, an important exhibition which provoked considerable praise, so much in fact that Le Gaulois published a special Sunday supplement that reprinted major reviews of the artist's previous shows beginning with his huge retrospective with Rodin held in 1889 (Fig.1).