NORMANDie
25 mai 2022 à giverny
I first visited the home of impressionist painter Claude Monet in June of 2018. I was moving back to Ohio in just a few days and in my two years spent in France I never took the time to visit this magnificent place. Unlike traditional French gardens, this one bursts with overwhelming untamed life.
I felt strikingly connected to the plants when I took the time to draw them. As minutes and hours went by while fixated on one sole flower, I finally understood why Monet devoted nearly 40 years of his life painting his gardens at Giverny. The shifting light that creates ever changing shadows and color, the insects that pollenate and weave themselves through the petals, actually seeing the flowers unfold to the nourishing sun. This was the first time in my life where I felt in sync with the slow patterns of nature. Content and at peace. I love to observe the expressions of those seeing the gardens for very first time, particularly in the elderly. The light in their eyes when they come through the entrance, their jaws dropping. The curiosity and desire to touch and smell the largest blooms. It’s as if they’re wondering why it took so long for them to discover all of this beauty. To be fair, I asked myself the same.
Replicas of Monet’s works fill the salon on the ground floor. This was the first of three ateliers at his home in Giverny where he would work until 1899. Monet kept a painting from every stage of his life. All of the original paintings were inherited by Monet’s only living son Michel and have been transferred to the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris.
Monet’s fascination with reflections on water was the center of his artistic career. His ability to perceive unusual effects when others saw none would become one of his greatest strengths. In his paintings of les Nymphéas, the fluidity of water contrasts against the solid decoration of the waterlilies and reflections of cascading willows. Each painting explores the subtle qualities, textures and colors of natural light at different times of the day.
le pont japonais, 2018
graphite on paper
les coquelicots, 2018
graphite on paper
les nymphéas, 2018
graphite on paper
The entire story of Impressionism is displayed on the walls of Monet’s bedroom. From the very birth of the movement to its later influences, this room is filled only with paintings by his friends.
Although the paintings throughout the home are replicas, the one-hundred seventeen Japanese prints on display are original. Until about 1854, Japanese culture was isolated from the Western world. When a treaty was signed between Japan and the United States, Japanese imports entered the European markets introducing art and philosophies of Eastern countries. Monet’s passion for Japanese art and gardens influenced his planning of the water garden in 1893, where he would spend the final years of his life painting les Nymphéas.
le jardin de monsieur monet, 2018
micron on paper
SKETCHBOOKS
paris 2016-2018
a wet spring day. You bought me a cappuccino at the kiosk and held an umbrella over my head while I sketched in the rain.
Rue des Abbesses. Mai, 2018
Rue André Antoine
JARDIN DU LUXEMBOURG
Septembre, 2016
I’ve fallen in love with this place so many times but the morning I took this photo is where my mind frequently wanders. September 21, 2016, an early morning in the 6ème arrondissement. My cousin was in town with friends. We stayed out too late by the Seine and I had missed the last metro home. I slept at their hotel and was woken up at an ungodly hour because three adult men were on a mission to go to Disneyland. I started my walk home. Half asleep and hungover as shit, I discovered The Luxembourg Gardens. The trees were tall, sculpted cubes, and every blade of grass cut crisp and evenly to no flaw. Silent, not a soul around, something you never experience in Paris. I smelled coffee and croissants and was immediately drawn towards it. I ordered an espresso and the young girl told me she wasn’t quite open yet. She must have sensed I was desperate because she made me one anyways. I sat in a chair wet with dew, absorbing the beauty of the long shadows. This simple moment will forever be with me. A week before, I was isolated, struggling with the language and longing to find my place within this amazing city. This moment changed me, and I needed more of it. I continued to the north side of the garden, a small pool hidden in the trees. The sunlight reflecting ripples of water onto every tree and sculpture. I left with white dust on my shoes, the way you leave every garden in Paris.
