Visiting Claude Monet at home

As proposed last week, I have another post on Claude Monet for you. From 1883 he lived in Giverny, a village of about 500 citizens. In 1890 he bought the house, he used to live in during the last 7 years. He lived in that house ’til he died in 1926.

The house still exist and is a museum, now. You can visit the house and the gardens surrounding the house. Huge parking grounds are prepared to have enough room for many, many visitors. The entrance fee is quite high. But, to maintain such a big garden costs a significant amount of money. You can also visit the house. Many paintings are hanging on the walls. But, don’t expect an art museum here. The rooms are still equipped with the past owners furnitures. So you can get an idea of the circumstances Claude Monet used to live. The exposed paintings are from several different creation periods. Certainly, you can see paintings created in the garden around the house, too.

When we arrived, we found a free parking slot very easy. Parking is free and the parking grounds are well signposted. We found is very easy, although it’s a bit remote. On the feeder road several busses full of tourists met us halfway, so we expected a very crowded place (we were there in the middle of the French summer holiday period). Fortunately I bought our tickets in advance online, so we were entitled to enter the property by a side entrance only for bus tours and people with pre-bought tickets. This side entrance is a little bit hidden and we have had to look for it. We knew about the side entrance from the fine prints on the tickets. There was a significant queue in front of the cash box. But inside the garden it was ok. Only the house was too crowded for me. Thus I fled back in the garden very quickly. My wife and my daughter stayed inside much longer.

You can also find a huge gift shop. Here you can buy calendars, postcards, books, DVDs and many, many different tiny things decorated with images by Monet or related to him or his art style. The gift shop is also accessible from the street without the need for a ticket. From inside the garden you have to leave by crossing the gift shop.

Although the garden is big and has a lot of different gardening styles, you’d probable need only about 2 hours to watch it. It was nice to have visited the garden, but I won’t go there for a second time.

Around the house, there are several art galleries, cafés and even flower shops trying to attract people coming for visiting the house and garden of Claude Monet.

Enjoy!

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Inventing a new style of painting

In the 1870s there was a revolution in painting in France. Claude Monet, a french painter (1840-1926) came to Honfleur, a very small town in Normandy. He came to Honfleur for an exhibition and for painting, where his style of painting impressed the visitors very much. A newspaper editor took the name of one of his paintings “Impression, soleil levant” (Impression, Sunrise), to name his review of that exhibition: “L’Exposition des Impressionnistes”. He has not the only painter working in this style, that was faced harsh opposition from the conventional art community in France.

Impressionist painting characteristics include relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles. (from wikipedia)

Claude Monet liked to paint in Normandy, especially in Le Havre, Honfleur and Étretat. He loved the special light here at the sea.

Two of his paintings of the natural monuments of Étretat are set up as weatherproof reproduction copies at the beach of Étretat. They stand in the locations, where Claude Monet has stood to create these painting.

I like this idea to bring the art back to its origin.

In my lasts posts, I focused on the cliffs and the gorgeous natural monuments here in Étretat. If you’ve missed them, go back and have a look.

Enjoy!