Book Review: Monet’s Years at Giverny
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Title: Monet’s Year’s at Giverny: Beyond Impressionism Published: The Metropolitan Museum of Art ISBN: 0-8109-8138-6 |
This book is a wonderful glimpse into Monet’s life in Giverny, France. It’s loaded with original photos from the 1900’s, and includes pictures of the original landscape. There are several photos of Monet in his garden, but my favorites were those taken inside his studio.
The old black & white photos give one a sense of intimacy, as though looking through the family album. The 81 color reproductions are from the exhibition held at the St. Louis Art Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Contents
Forward: About the exhibit; map to painting locations.
Introduction: A short synopsis of the paintings displayed in the exhibit.
Monet’s Giverny: Describes the development of the property, family life, and illustrated using original photographs from 1902-1933.
Illustrations: The collection of eighty-one paintings sorted by subject. Color reproductions are numbered, corresponding to the map provided. A previously separated waterlily triptych is exhibited together for the first time. Also included are early paintings done around Giverny, haystacks, poplars, views of the Seine, the Japanese footbridge, The Flowering Arches, and lot and lots of waterlily paintings.
Chronology: A very handy time line of paintings and significant events.
This book displays the collection of representative works selected for the 1977-78 exhibition and does not contain everything Monet ever painted while living in Giverny. The paintings were all completed within a two mile area of his home, and illustrate the gradual changes to his style of painting.
I enjoyed having a map of the area and being able to correlate paintings to locations. The chronology provided a quick reference to what was painted and when, and events that influenced both his productivity and his temperament.
The short narration of Monet’s life at Giverny reveals the trauma of failing eyesight, and his personal despair over the death of his second wife, followed by his eldest son. A successful painter during his lifetime, he also suffered self-doubts about his work.
The description of the property’s development is somewhat abbreviated, but the peek into his work habits was enlightening. The thought of this great painter scrambling about in the brush just doesn’t fit the image. His method of painting “en plein air” was witnessed and reported by Georges Jeanniot, one of the first visitors to Giverny.
I was unaware of Monet’s strong sense of discipline or devotion to family until I read this book. Excluding the chronology, it contains about 20 pages of text and is suitable for most age groups. The remainder of the book is devoted to nicely sized color reproductions from the exhibit, and is a wonderful choice for a first book on Monet.
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Lisa that was a great review, thankyou for that! (and I really felt for you on the last post too).
I’ll have to see if I can get that book through my library, it’ll be brilliant for the Monet project.
Thanks Wendy! The book is worthwhile and won’t take long to read. There’s more artwork than text.
On the other item… I’m clueless when it comes to human behavior, or taste.