Monet’s Gardens in Giverny

by Alex Porter

My photos of the lily pond and lilies at Giverny

While on holiday in Northern France, I was lucky to be able to visit Monet’s gardens and house in Giverny, Normandy.

Detail from 'Water Lilies' by Claude Monet

The Giverny garden is probably the most famous garden in France and around 500,000 people visit it every year to see where Monet, the famous French Impressionist painter, lived and worked. Many of his paintings were painted in the gardens, including his famous ‘Water Lilies’ ‘Japanese footbridge’ paintings, which are some of my favourites. Monet lived in Giverny from 1883 until his death in 1926; during this time, he created 2,500 paintings, most of them based on his beautiful and unique gardens.

The garden is split into two parts, with a flower garden at the front of the house and the more famous water gardens, which were created ten years after Monet's arrival in Giverny on the other part, constructed on land across the road from his house.

My photos of the lily pond and lilies at Giverny

The flower gardens cover about a hectare and are laid out in borders with coloured themes. Flowers like tulips, irises, oriental poppies and peonies were ones that the painter particularly enjoyed bringing to life in his painting. The plants' wonderful colours provided lots of inspiration for Monet and he was well known as an Impressionist painter for creating vibrant, strokes of colour.

As well as visiting the gardens, you can visit Monet’s immaculately painted house where lots of his original paintings hang on the walls and where it is interesting seeing paintings coming alive on the walls of his own home.

Detail from 'Water Lilies' by Claude Monet

While I was visiting the gardens and house, it was great to see how the gardens could change with the seasons and to also see how Monet captured these changes in his paintings. I hopefully managed to capture how the lily pond looked in ‘Autumn’ in my photos.