Monet: Late Paintings of Giverny from the Musee Marmottan

While Monet is my favorite Impressionist artist, I have little affection for most of the work he did in the last years of his life. However, "Monet: Late Paintings of Giverny from the Musee Marmottan" is about more than the work the artist did during the first part of the 20th-century. What is fascinating about this book is how it talks about Claude Monet as a skilled landscape designer who turned his garden at Giverny into a living canvas which served as the subject for almost all of his later work. The text of this book consists primarily of four essays: (1) "The Musee Marmottan and Claude Monet," by Arnaud d'Hauterives, the museum's curator, that briefly discusses the history of the Monet collection found there; (2) Lyn Federle Orr's "Monet: An Introduction" provides what is really an overview of Monet's body of work; (3) Paul Hayes Tucker's "Passion and Patriotism in Monet's Late Work" discusses how the artist started focusing on particular elements and enlarging them in his paintings. This essay is illustrated with not only reproductions of Monet's paintings but photographs of Monet's garden from that period; (4) "Monet as a Garden Artist" by Elizabeth Murray focuses on the strong parallels between Monet as a painter and a gardener. The essay includes a detailed diagram of both the Flower Garden and the Water Garden at Monet's home in Giverny, as well as an axial view of the two. What I like most about this book is that I learned more about the garden and its relationship to the famous paintings of the water lilies, the Japanese bridge, and the other familiar sights. This book ends with the Exhibition of 22 paintings displayed at the Musee Marmottan, from two "Water Lilies (Nympheas)" paintings from 1903 to a painting of "The Roses (Les Roses) from 1925-1926. Almost all of these paintings reflect the darker style of his last years. However, I think with this book you will come for the paintings, but stay for the garden. Of course, now I have a strong desire to go there and see these things for myself. For a visit there, albeit a slightly fictional one, check out "Linnea in Monet's Garden," a children's book that adult will certainly enjoy by Christina Bjork and Lena Anderson.