Claude Monet’s Water Lily Garden Almost Didn't Happen
Claude Monet’s beautiful gardens in Giverny once caused him to curse out an entire town. The impressionist would go on to paint his famous water lily paintings in the serene setting, but navigating the small French commune’s bureaucracy proved stressful.
Giverny locals objected to Monet’s plans for an Asian-influenced water garden, fearing the environmental impact of introducing non-native plant species to the area. They made it so difficult to acquire the land that Monet once wrote to his wife, “I want no longer to have anything to do with all those people in Giverny…S*** on the natives of Giverny.”
Despite his initial frustrations, Monet succeeded in acquiring the land necessary for his gardens, and soon built the Japanese footbridges he would make so iconic. An avid gardener, Monet also acquired a number of newly-bred, multicolored species of water lilies, though in his words, he “grew them without thinking of painting them.” Luckily, the influential painter was able to make the creative leap on his own, but we still might not have gotten some of his most beautiful later pieces without an assist from Georges Clemenceau, the former Prime Minister of France who also happened to be an old friend of Monet’s.
When the artist developed cataracts late in life, he was resolved to avoid eye surgery, even saying he would “give up painting if necessary.” Clemenceau, who would later tell his friend that “complaining gives you the greatest joy in life”, helped convince his gifted friend to get the surgery. Monet eventually completed the massive water lily paintings that he calls his “Grand Decorations” and donated the pieces the French state, as he had promised. Today they are housed in Paris’s Musée de l’Orangerie.
To see the collection on the Museum’s website visit, https://www.musee-orangerie.fr/en/collection