Giverny

      

        Getting to know the Impressionists turns out to be more complex than simply viewing some paintings.  While it is true the Paris visitor can see hundreds of paintings, I could not help but wonder what more there was to understand about the real life people who put all of their lives into this body of work.  We came to understand much more about the insights, the development, the struggles and the goals of the artists who thrived in Paris at the turn of the last century.  Inspiring to be sure, particularly when one stands before the painting close enough to feel the bumpy ridges of heavy oil paint that pronounce a depth and intensity that photos in books can never do.  It is easy to feel the presence of the artist herself, and see the very light of that summer day when she stood at the window trying to capture the piano lesson. (Berthe Morisot) Or look into the eyes of a friend that the painter is wishing to remember with a portrait.  (Manet painting Berthe Morisot)  Or perhaps the most poignant subject that connects us directly with the emotions of the painter, is the painting of Camille Monet on her deathbed, a ghostly white remembrance of someone who died too young and left Claude with two young sons, changing the course of his life.  These images do tell us something of the life of the painter, but there is more that remains private, lost in fact.  Because the painting now lives its own life of notoriety, independent of the person who painted it and independent of the subjects themselves.
  How then are we to know the artist as a living person of history?  Some would say the work itself is what defines the artist, and other details are unnecessary, but I longed to know the person and not just the work.
            One way to know someone better is by visiting their home.  A short train ride to Giverny, Monet's home, garden and studio await the visitor, a chance to recall the people who breathed life into a movement of art loved by thousands.  Walk through the bright yellow dining room of the Monet family and hear the children clammering about the table, the screen door slamming as the youngest arrives for dejeuner, having run the three blocks from the school.  Watch Germaine polish the copper pots to hang shimmering in the kitchen, awaiting fresh asparagus and tomatoes from the garden outside the kitchen door.  Join the happy family gathering on the occasion of Blanche's wedding to Jean Monet, captured in one of the few photographs recording these people.  Peek into the atalier and pretend to sit at the desk, reading the sorrowful condolences when Alice, his second wife died, and Jean, his oldest son shortly thereafter.  Walk through the garden and wonder who trimmed the espallier, who cleaned the pond, who sorted the bulbs?  Who that is, in the early years at Giverney, when Monet could only afford to rent the farm house.  Later, thanks to the rising sales of his paintings he bought the house, built a large studio, and hired seven gardeners!
      Today hundreds of people arrive each day to see this famous place, enjoy the remarkable garden and pond, and try to conjure once again the soul of the man who lives on through his painting.