CLAUDE MONET
blooms only in roses and herbaceous peonies;
and he loathed variegated foliage.”
By mixing perennials with choice annuals, he
was able to conduct great symphonies of colour
that would flower simultaneously at various
points throughout the year. He also replaced
some apple trees with various prunus, including
Japanese cherry trees that would announce
each new spring with pink and white blossom.
In 1893, Monet bought an adjacent patch of
land that backed onto the railway tracks. It was
here that he would create the water garden
containing agapanthus and the famous pond of
water lilies that he would go on to paint morethan 250 times. “It took me some time to
understand my water lilies,” he later wrote.
“I cultivated them with no thought of painting
them... And then, suddenly, I had a revelation of
the magic of my pond. I took my palette. From
this moment, I have had almost no other model.”
Although Monet had painted the gardens of
his previous house at Argenteuil, it was with his
first water lily paintings that his style blossomed.
As such the Gemeentemuseum exhibition really
picks things up at the turn of the 20th century, a
year after the Frenchman painted The Water Lily
Pond, a favourite of the National Gallery, London’s
collection that has been loaned for the show.THE ART OF
GARDENING
FOUR OTHER GREAT
ARTIST-CREATED
GARDENS TO VISIT•BARBARA HEPWORTH
Trewyn Studio, Cornwall, England
Opened as a museum in 1976,
the late Yorkshire sculptor’s
St Ives studio and garden is
home to the largest permanent
collection of her works.
http://www.tate.org.uk/stives•EMIL NOLDE
Seebüll, Neukirchen, Germany
The German-Danish expressionist
spent almost 30 years here,
designing the garden and
painting his famous sunflowers.
http://www.nolde-stiftung.de/en•IAN HAMILTON FINLAY
Little Sparta, Dunsyre, Scotland
Just outside Edinburgh lies
Finlay’s greatest work of art –
a five-acre garden created with
wife Sue and filled with poetry
carved in concrete.
http://www.littlesparta.org.uk•FRIDA KAHLO
Casa Azul, Coyoacán, Mexico City
The Mexican artist was born and
died in her “blue” house [below],
where she cultivated flowers and
fruit trees that often appeared
in her paintings.
http://www.museofridakahlo.org.mxALAMY