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Claude Monet made about 250 paintings of the water lilies in the pond he created in his garden at Giverny, north-west of Paris. They occupied him for the last three decades of his life, until his death in 1926, and he kept painting them even as cataracts clouded his sight.

Giverny, France

ArtHistory

The story behind the card

Monet moved to Giverny in 1883. In 1893 he bought a plot of land near his house, had a pond dug and planted with water lilies, and spanned it with a Japanese-style footbridge. He painted the pond at every hour and in every season, so that his real subject became the changing light on the water rather than the flowers themselves. In 1909 the Durand-Ruel gallery in Paris showed 48 of these canvases. From 1912 cataracts dimmed his sight and changed the way he saw colour, and his late pictures grow looser and more abstract. His grandest project was a set of huge panels for the French state: eight murals fill two oval rooms at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris, which opened to the public on 16 May 1927, a few months after his death.

Türkçe oku
Claude Monet, Paris'in kuzeybatısındaki Giverny'de, bahçesine kazdırdığı göletin nilüferlerini yaklaşık 250 kez resmetti. 1926'daki ölümüne kadar son otuz yılını büyük ölçüde bu resimlere verdi; katarakt gözlerini bulandırdığında bile fırçayı bırakmadı.
Giverny, Fransa

Monet 1883'te Giverny'ye taşındı. 1893'te evinin yakınında bir arsa satın aldı; burada bir gölet kazdırıp içine nilüferler diktirdi, üzerine de Japon üslubunda bir köprü kurdurdu. Göleti günün her saatinde, her mevsimde resmetti; öyle ki asıl konusu çiçeklerden çok, suyun yüzeyinde durmadan değişen ışık oldu. 1909'da Paris'teki Durand-Ruel galerisi bu tuvallerden 48'ini sergiledi. 1912'den itibaren katarakt görüşünü bulandırdı ve renkleri algılayışını değiştirdi; geç dönem resimlerinde fırça darbeleri serbestleşir, resimler giderek soyutlaşır. En büyük tasarısı Fransız devleti için yaptığı dev panolardı: Sekiz büyük duvar resmi, Paris'teki Orangerie Müzesi'nin iki oval salonunu kaplar. Salonlar, ölümünden birkaç ay sonra, 16 Mayıs 1927'de ziyarete açıldı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Water Lilies (Monet series)
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