Monet’s Gardens: On Canvas And In The Dirt

We’ll get lost in water lilies, wisteria and a fine riot of flowers, Monet-style.

No one had ever painted flowers quite like Claude Monet, the great impressionist. His water lilies. His wisteria. His nasturtium. His roses and delphinium. In arches and cascades. Fiery and serene. Shimmering. Dreamy. But not from dreams. Monet was a gardener. A gardener extraordinaire. He painted his own gardens. His water garden. His Grande Allee.

And ever since, art lovers and gardeners have flocked to his canvases. Dreamed of his gardens at Giverny. Dreamed of recreating their own Monet magic.

This hour, On Point: the fine riot of flowers of Claude Monet.
-Tom Ashbrook

Paul Tucker, professor of Art, University of Massachusetts-Boston. He has curated Monet exhibits across the world, and is curator of the New York Botanical Garden’s current exhibit titled “Monet’s Garden.”

Derek Fell, writer, photographer, gardener and landscape designer. He's the author of The Magic of Monet's Garden: His Planting Plans and Color Harmonies and The Impressionist Garden. You can find a gallery of Fell's photos here.

For some notes on how to plant your own Monet-inspired garden, see these notes from Derek Fell.

The New York Times  "The gardens he created during the course of 40 years at Giverny, his country home midway between Paris and Rouen, rank as one of the great artistic projects of the late 19th and early 20th centuries."

The New York Times "The market for Claude Monet's paintings faltered in the 1880s but came back the following decade, when he started producing series like the haystacks and the Rouen Cathedral facades. He began to make a lot of money, enough to finance his own private utopia in Giverny in northern France, where he devoted himself to flower gardening with as much industry and creativity as he did to painting."

“Pinsonette” by  L'accordéon de France

“Reine de musette” by Les as de Nogent