The book of the major Monet exhibition in
Kunstmuseum Den Haag
Claude Monet (1840–1926) went to live in the village of Giverny in 1883. The landscape painter swapped his nomadic lifestyle for a reclusive existence, devoting himself completely to painting his impressive garden. He spent years working, isolated and undisturbed, on his magnum opus: a large decorative ensemble depicting the reflections on the surface of his water lily pond. Monet regarded his Grandes Décorations as his legacy, and in the course of the project he painted hundreds of canvases that he never sold or exhibited.
When Monet died in 1926 he was a celebrated artist, but his paintings from Giverny did not receive a positive reception when they were posthumously revealed. Critics and art historians regarded the water lilies as an inferior element of his oeuvre, the work of a blind old man. This perception eventually changed, thanks in part to an exhibition in 1952 at the current Kunstmuseum Den Haag, which, for the first time, presented Monet’s water lilies as true masterpieces. These paintings have now become Monet’s trademark, and his most beloved work.
This lavishly illustrated publication focuses on the period Monet spent in Giverny and on the creation of his final masterwork. It also charts how Monet’s water lilies have been received over the years.
With essays by Frouke van Dijke, Astrid Goubert, Marianne Mathieu and Benno Tempel.
The exhibition Monet – The Garden Paintings runs from 12 October 2019 until 2 February 2020 in Kunstmuseum Den Haag (The Hague, The Netherlands) and will show no fewer than forty international masterpieces.
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