Monet, the garden and the Disneyland of Impressionism

Just as J.L. Borges said he wanted to be remembered for the books he had read rather than those he had written, Claude Monet said that his ‘great work of art’ was not his canvases, but his garden. In 1883, he moved to Giverny, 70 kilometres from Paris, on the River Seine. Now in a more stable financial position, seven years later he bought the property, brought there the Japanese prints that inspired him so much, and, with his shaggy beard falling onto his stomach, his waistcoat and his wide-brimmed hat, devoted his time to observing the flowers. He created a place dedicated to his obsession with colour, “joy and torment”. Of course, he travelled – to Bordighera, Holland, London, Antibes… – but for over forty years, until his death, he would stay there as much as possible, improving his little house and his plot of land, planting and pruning, immersed in that natural kaleidoscope, observing how the light played on the water of his pond, how the water lilies changed colour with the seasons, and how the undergrowth could appear so different at every hour of the day – even more so than Rouen Cathedral.

Paris – that is to say, France – is preparing to celebrate the father of Impressionism on the centenary of his death, on 5 December this year. Exhibitions will open in September at various temples of modern art. And one wonders what the best way is to commemorate the death of this ‘Walden of painting’ (who, however, cannot be reduced to mere daisies). There will be a Proustian exhibition on the theme of time at the Orangerie, followed, of course, by events at the Marmottan, which houses the painter’s largest collection, including the painting that gave the movement its name, Impressions du soleil levant. And then there will be various other events scattered around, to capitalise as much as possible on the most prolific and recognisable member of the plein air gang. The Impressionists—and thus Monet as their forefather, their noble father—have gone pop; they have become a marketable commodity. We forget his connection to the war, his friendship with Prime Minister Clemenceau, and how, as a boy, he used to sell charcoal caricatures for a few pennies in Le Havre. The novelist Julian Barnes has argued that the reason for his widespread success is that Monet is ‘cheerful’, but for Americans he became even more mainstream when Leonardo DiCaprio, in Titanic, pointed out the quality of his use of colour to Kate Winslet. To appreciate his triumph in the age of technical reproducibility, one need only look at the Vuitton bags bearing the word ‘Monet’ in gold, or the dozens of exhibitions and small-scale shows that have taken place in Italy – particularly in the provinces – in recent years. Disposable exhibitions, reproducible and transportable, simply because the Impressionists produced so much, and because Impressionism now means everything and nothing. Padua, Genoa, Bologna, Naples, Florence… Minor museums and exhibition boxes. Words like ‘masterpieces’ and ‘modernity’. And even in Rome and Milan, ‘immersive experiences’ or ‘digital experiences’, where all it takes is a few projectors and HD photos of water lilies to be viewed through ‘virtual reality’ headsets for the public to have had an ‘art experience’.

But if we are to use this clunky terminology, what could be more ‘immersive’ than a garden, where all the senses are stimulated by leaves, pistils, robins, petals and paddles? For the centenary, perhaps we should give museums a miss and head to a garden to spend half an hour on end – with our iPhones switched off – gazing at the changing light on the petals of an agapanthus. And certainly not in Giverny, which has been transformed into a mini Disneyland for American women in straw hats, with their husbands taking photos on iPads and influencers snapping selfies on the Japanese bridge. And then there’s the queue at the gift shop for magnets, so they can display what Adorno called ‘nature’s wounds’ on the fridge of a three-room flat.