PublishedFlammarion, March 2017 |
ISBN9782080203069 |
FormatHardcover, 224 pages |
Dimensions22.5cm × 14cm |
This beautiful, slipcased volume offers an intimate tour inside Monet's home and through the idyllic Giverny garden that inspired his most iconic paintings. Monet first spotted the village of Giverny from the window of a train and then relocated to the rural haven outside Paris in 1883.
An artist with a passion for painting landscapes and outdoor scenes, the garden at Giverny soon became the impressionist master's greatest artistic accomplishment and a catalyst for his work. In 1890, Monet began renovating it, installing a picturesque water lily pond inspired by the Japanese prints he avidly collected. The setting of Monet's Water Lilies series-his most famous works-it is now the most visited garden of its size in the Western world. The beautifully vivid illustrations of Monet's paintings, his home, and the grounds give readers unprecedented access into the flowery paradise to which Monet dedicated the last 40 years of his life. Lovers of garden design and impressionist art are invited on an intimate tour via this handsome volume.
Bill is one of the founders of Boffins and has been involved in selecting the books we stock since our beginning in 1989. His favourite reading is history, with psychology, current affairs, and business books coming close behind. His hobbies are reading, food, reading, drinking, reading, and sleeping.
*As reviewed on Radio 6PR 882 11th May 2017*
I think we’d struggle to find someone that doesn’t love Monet’s paintings. He’s the most popular of the French impressionists by far and he dedicated the last 40 years of his life to his garden at Giverny.
This book is a beautiful thing – it’s compact (about the size of a hardcover novel), superbly bound and in a lovely slipcase – and anyone receiving it as a gift would think that it just oozes “I’m special”.
It has 300 colour photographs that take the reader on an intimate tour of Monet’s garden, his home, his surroundings and his paintings.
Anyone who has visited Monet’s garden at Giverny, or who aspires to do so, or who loves Monet or gardens, will adore this book. They’ll find it fascinating to read and a joy to look at.
Just like Carlotta’s Perth that we talked about last week, this book depicts an era, family life, the tastes and fashions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century – but in France, not Perth.
