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| Approaching the house through the gardens at Giverney |
In Paris, the first garden Jon and I encountered was a small internal garden
in the open-air atrium of our apartment building. We had the experience, after
entering through the blue-painted door sandwiched between a café and a shop, of
seemingly going into the heart of this 300-year-old building. We went up one
flight of stairs and followed the banister that ran by open French windows to the next
flight. The window was open to the atrium with the potted plants and stepped plantings so carefully placed. Our
apartment, up another flight, had a tall French-casement window that allowed me
to air the apartment and look down to the garden. The atrium also allowed
conversations to gather in the garden space and bounce around so that I needed to
be careful and be certain my voice was soft when I sat by the window.
On our first excursion to the busy intersection of Rue de
Rivoli and Blvd. de Sebastopol, we discovered the gated garden around the tower
dedicated to St. Jacques. It was typical of the various small gardens we
happened upon around the churches and in corners of comfort along Blvd.
Saint-Germain and other streets.
The fence held the bushes and trees safely in place and these surrounded paved
walkways around the monument and led through the various gates. Benches were placed
so as to let the shade pillow shoulders and comfort those who gathered there. This was
very much an adult meeting space. The children in strollers were hurried through, and there
were not many young people. With all the grandparents watching, snogging was
not as rampant as in other areas. As we walked, feeling ungrounded and awed by
all that was around us, these little gardens were blessings to our “senior”
joints.
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| One image of the Water Lilies at Giverney |
Our time in Paris was short, and there was so much more to explore than we were able to
during our stay, but we exerted ourselves to visit Giverney via the
Fat-Tire bike tour. Oh! What a garden!
My love for Monet and other Impressionist painters began
when I was young. I loved to sit in front of the Water Lilies at the
Cleveland Museum of Art. It became a part of me. I
felt I breathed blue and purple when I took my time with the painting. The chance to see the gardens of
inspiration was a golden light for our trip.
We began at Gare St-Lazare, the very train station Monet
used for his exciting painting of smoke and steam. On our morning visit, we did not have the same colors and bustle of late 1870s,
but we stood on the platforms looking at the trains and knew we were part of
the stream of existence, part of the bustle of technology and modernity that
had attracted Monet and continues to demand expression by artists today. Our
tour guide, Peter, had a blue book under his arm that he referenced and shared
during our train ride to Vernon. He was obviously in love with his subject and the sharing excursion that we were undertaking.
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| The Old Mill on a remnant of a bridge in Vernon |
The day was cloudy, but we had been promised a bike tour
rain-or-shine. The clouds were being temperamental. We would be drenched in a steady rain,
and then the sun would break out in a blue sky. We collected our bikes from
garages in a courtyard that was not far from one of the old churches that Monet
had painted. We biked in the wobbly shadows of the half-timbered houses that
seemed to lean into the road as our guide led us to a market. At the market stop, the booths
were set up in the center of a busy area that was lined with shops and
bakeries. The booths were filled with fresh produce, and one shop had grilled
chicken. We found fruit and cider; Jon found a lovely bakery and grabbed the
last brie-stuffed baguette. With lunch stowed away in our backpacks, we were ready to
continue to our picnic spot. The sky, blessing us with sunshine, gave us a
chance to cross the Seine – it seemed a fairly calm river in Normandy – and find the park
by the Old Mill and the Tourelles Castle.
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| Walking past Hotel Baudy toward the gardens. |
After lunch and more stories about Monet from Peter, we continued through a few more streets to a bike path in a park. The park road wound behind the houses, and the atmosphere changed. Even the weeds seemed to preen and boast of their
nearness to Giverney, and the sun kept visiting us. I could hear the birds, but
they stayed covered. We biked on Rue Claude Monet into the site, past the Hotel Baudy, and stored our bikes by a field.
Nothing can actually describe the garden. The visual impact
would necessitate too many words. One breathes in color, light, and the essence
of nature’s grand beauties assembled through each small bloom. The plants here
do not have the pompous display of the crowned colors of a
bird of paradise that seems to want to stand alone. The blooms seem to be grown to enjoy each other. Entering the garden one notes the points of color that tempt
one to release the paint from the brush tip.
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| Poppies next to the church by Monet's grave site |
After touring the gardens and the house, we stopped by the church where Monet is buried with other
family members. Everything was white: the marble cross, the church stones. The
most touching memorial, for me, was the spray of poppies growing between the church
wall and the gravel. We retraced our way back to Vernon. Returning to the train
station. Again, it began to rain.
The gardens prepared me for the visit the following day to
Musee de L’Orangerie only by intensifying the impact of the rooms of Water
Lilies. Every moment of love and wonder I had felt since I was twelve,
each moment of visual joy experienced at Giverney, every ounce of empathy I had
shared as an artist washed over me when I entered the first room wreathed in
four versions of Water Lilies. I cried.
All the pictures were taken by myself and my husband.
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