Inspired in Giverny
Paris Solo Diaries — XIII
On the Monday morning of 17th June, seated next to a sweet American lady who reminded me of one of my aunts, I began my journey into 17th century, into the life of the father of impressionism, Claude Monet. Plugging in my earphones, passing by the beautiful French countryside, on my way to a small village, I was told the story about the birth of impressionism.
In the old ages, when photography had not been invented, painting was used as a means to capture events such as war or coronation of a king or to commemorate people. However, with the advent of photography, a lot of painters started questioning their art since photography captured reality better than paintings. At around the same time, there was a school of art which ran by strict rules relating to painting, such as clear outlines, strokes of paints not being visible, etc. Exhibition of the paintings not approved by this school of art was prohibited. At this time rose Monet, painting landscapes, capturing not the reality but his impression of the reality. His paintings were very different from anything anyone had done so far and so of course, it was badly received. However, believing in his work, he continued painting. He even put up an exhibition of his paintings along with other artists that had been rejected by the academy. They called it ‘the exhibition of the rejects’. The word ‘impressionism’ was first used as sarcasm by a journalist who covered this exhibition, to describe Monet’s painting. Little did he know that his sarcasm would turn into an art movement and a style that would change the world of art.
Hearing this story, I started tracing back the history of images. With the advent of photography, impressionism made way into people’s life. With the advent of digital photography, the reels lost their importance. So much has happened in the world of images where 3d painting replaced 2d painting, videography replaced photography and now it is the world of moving images that we once thought of as magic.
Overlooking the green hills, the small houses from my front-row seat in the double-decker bus, I arrived at a conclusion. Each time, disruption though initially rejected, whether by academy of arts or by Kodak, changed the world for better. Strict rules and set ways while good most of the times, need to be breached to achieve greatness. Disruption is the key to innovation. Innovation is the key to a better world.
Reaching Giverny, a small village outside of Paris, where Claude Monet lived for most of his life, I understood why he left the city for this village. When I stood in his Japanese garden, in front of a weeping willow; with pink, yellow and white water lilies floating alongside the bleeding green and purple from the reflections of the weeping willow and the skies, I finally understood his art that I saw at Museum Orangerie, that had a sky with the greens on the top and bottom. I wondered why was there so much green in his water. Was it weed? If so, why didn’t its strokes make it look so? Or was it trees and skies? If so, why were there lilies and trees coming from up above the sky? Standing there, in his Japanese garden, I finally unlocked the mystery that his paintings held for me. He didn’t paint the trees above the skies, but he painted the reflections of the trees and the skies in the lakes that were covered with water lilies and surrounded by weeping willows. Though it sounds simple enough, to a person who hadn’t encountered Monet’s work before, it was a revelation.
I could see how he came up with the idea of heaven with no earth, no sky and no water, for at that moment I was standing in that heaven. The combination of colours in his paintings at the Orangerie was reflected there in those gardens. An array of purple, green, pink, red, yellow, orange spread across the landscape, so beautifully that every movement of my eyeball led to the discovery of a new colour, a new flower. Any colour that you could think of was there either the in flowers or in leaves. I wondered what it must have felt like to sit there and paint, to use all the colours in your colour box.
As I stood there, I imagined Monet coming out there with his canvas and painting the weeping willows, the pink and blue skies, the water lilies the dabs of different colours that represented various flowers, and all of that blending into one another with smooth strokes so beautifully that one cannot make out where the sky ended and the trees started. The actual trees would stand vertical on their reflections in the lake. What must he be thinking when he created something that was never heard of, something so outrageous as was never seen before? And what kept him going despite multiple rejections from the academy of art?
“I like it. I like how the colours blend. I love the lack of boundary. I love this freedom from confinement to the rules about the types of brushstrokes that can be used. I love the use of so many colours. So, let me do something I love rather than something I don’t enjoy. I’ll survive on lesser money, but let me do what I love”. If that is what he must have thought, I have to admit that thinking so freely in the 17th century is commendable. Doing what you love has led to a lot of failures, but it has also created a few exemplary people. It is just proof that disruption works. It got me thinking as to how do I disrupt my current way of writing? What is it that I want to put down on paper, but am afraid to do so from the fear of the rules?
Looking at the beauty in front of me, I could see the play of light with naked eyes and in pictures. Of course, what the eyes captured, the camera just couldn’t. And yet I clicked more pictures of this place than of my entire Paris trip combined; for I wanted to share this beauty, this paradise with all my loved ones. I wanted to paint it.
Real art is created when it inspires you to do something you have given up on or something you don’t know how to do. That was what Monet’s garden did for me. Monet’s garden is as much art as his paintings. I feel that while his paintings are given due credit, his art in the form of his garden isn’t given enough credit.
It is his garden, along with his paintings that is real art. I can’t imagine the kind of effort and patience that must have gone into designing it, to get the perfect light and reflections and the time it must have taken to plant so many flowers and trees and wait for them to grow.
The combination of plants and trees and different shades and shapes of leaves and flowers was not only beautiful but also thoughtful in its synchrony. The coolness of the plants brought a feeling of calm and quiet just like the cool pastels used in his paintings.
Post the Japanese garden, I made my way to his other garden, which was against the backdrop of hills. At the centre of this garden, amidst millions of flowers in hundred of shades and colours, stood his tiny peach and brown house. Near his house were multiple arches, some rectangular and others circular, covered in a combination of green vines and flowers. Some were covered with varied pastel roses and some others with colourful flowers I couldn’t recognize. At the front of these arches, stood tall stalks of purple bulbous and indigo salvia. Pink and peach freesias were scattered all around the place, combined with red and yellow petunias.
The audio guide told me that he built this large a garden with such variety of flowers with only 6 more people as help. It took him 43 years to create this piece of art that never went colourless, for he planted a combination of flowers that bloomed in different seasons.
Finishing my visit with the overpriced souvenir shop, I came outside the museum and the gardens for lunch. While the lunch was below average, I was happily surprised to find that this village comprised of one vibrant lane filled with cafes and museums.
There was greenery everywhere around, from the sides of the road to the sides of a wall, from gardens to museums and cafes, from top of the house, to its feet and everywhere in between. There were colours everywhere around, from the gardens of Monet to the pots in a restaurant, from the paintings in the museum, to the knick-knacks in the souvenir shops and galleries. I could see white everywhere around me, from the lilies in the water to the roses on the roadside, from the sunflowers outside the museum to the chairs and tables of a café and the heads of most people visiting this place. Ahh! What pleasure it must have been to live and love in Giverny!
Post lunch and my walk in the tiny village, I visited the museum that housed impressionist paintings by Monet and Auburtin. I saw the exact same landscape painted multiple times with different lights and reflections, turning each of them into a different piece of art.
Sitting outside the museum on a stone bench, under the pastel blue sky with stark white clouds in varied shapes and sizes, facing a wall of large green trees, surrounded by purple, orange and red flowers I soaked in the warm sun. I wondered, “How could anyone not be inspired by this place”. Not only Monet’s garden but even the smaller gardens of the museum surrounded by small hills and large trees, under which people sat and chatted, inspired art. Even though this garden was filled with people, it’s sheer beauty in the colours made me fall in love with it.
Post that I treated myself to cheesecake and some good coffee at a quaint café in Giverny, as I wrote some poetry. I met a long lost friend from Ahmedabad in this small town of Giverny. I found friends in a mother-daughter duo visiting from Brazil in Giverny. We sat on her scarf in the garden below the hills, exchanging notes on the laws of both countries (she was studying to be a judge) as we waited for our bus to arrive.
I ended the day with the sweet goodness of Laduree’s macaroons.
This day at Giverny turned into a day that I would later describe as one of the most inspiring days of my life, for not only did I write this prose, I wrote 4 poems and I promised myself to find a way to start painting again. Even though I hated cleaning the brushes, I decided to find a way. Little did I know then that the power of positive thinking does wonders, for two days later I found a medium to paint again, where I wouldn’t have to clean brushes.
This Monday in Paris changed my life, for after coming back, I have started painting again.
Read ‘Under the Majestic Eiffel (Paris Solo Diaries — XII)’ here
