The Impressionists' Love for Gardens: A Personal Perspective
As an art historian, I've always been fascinated by the Impressionists' obsession with gardens. It's a topic I explored in my book, In the Gardens of Impressionism, and it's a subject that continues to captivate me. What makes this particular interest so intriguing is the interplay between the artists' desire to capture the present moment and the sensory richness of gardens.
In the late 19th century, gardens were everywhere, and they were a source of inspiration for the Impressionists. The ubiquity of gardens, combined with the introduction of new and exotic plants, trees, and flowers, created a sensory overload that the artists couldn't resist. The 'great horticultural movement' and the development of 'ward cases' (named after botanist Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward) facilitated the transportation of live plants across the world, allowing artists to experiment with new and exotic flora.
But it's not just the sensory intensity of gardens that attracted the Impressionists. Gardens were also central to the 'modern life' that the artists sought to capture. In Paris, the new parks introduced by Napoleon III were essential to public hygiene, serving as 'green lungs' above ground and new sewer-arteries below ground. The city's trees and lavish corbeilles (floral display beds) were undeniably alluring, but the Impressionists' response was highly selective and often balanced the old and new.
One of the most intriguing examples of this is Édouard Manet's depiction of the Tuileries Gardens in 1863. The painting subversively chooses an old park, with its mass of trees that seems more like a primal forest than a cultivated green space. This contrast between the old and new is a recurring theme in the works of the Impressionists.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir's memories of his childhood in Paris also highlight the importance of gardens. Before the modern tree-lined boulevards and manicured squares, there was 'behind every house … a garden … Plenty of people still knew the pleasure of eating freshly-picked lettuce.' This nostalgia for rural existence is a common thread in the works of the Impressionists, who often depicted gardens as a retreat from the urban and industrial world.
The private garden, in particular, held a special significance for the Impressionists. Monet's paintings of his artist's garden at Argenteuil, for example, evoke a sense of familial pride and hope for national renewal. The very act of growing a garden was symbolic, especially after the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune, when Monet and Camille Pissarro took refuge with their young families in London. Their garden at Argenteuil was a celebration of French soil and a symbol of resilience.
Pissarro's multiple depictions of kitchen gardens near his home at Pontoise also reflect his utopian socialist vision of a better future based on working off the land. Berthe Morisot's paintings of her young child growing up in a garden further emphasize the connection between the growth of a child and the cultivation of nature.
The Impressionists' love for gardens was not just about the sensory intensity or the nostalgia for rural existence. It was also about the garden as an 'attachment environment' - a place imbued with personal significance because it was cultivated by the artist himself. Monet's obsession with sunflowers in his garden at Vétheuil, for example, seems almost elegiac after Pissarro's tragic death in 1879. His most ambitious garden at Giverny in Normandy, with its scented and coloured hybrid water lilies, became a showpiece of modern horticultural invention.
Monet's serial paintings of his pond at Giverny, capturing successive effects of light and atmosphere, construct a profoundly poetic vision of nature as a perpetually unfolding harmony. The garden, in this case, embraces the cosmic, and it's no wonder that Monet used this motif for his Paris Orangerie murals, which he gave to France as a World War I memorial. The water lilies open to the light, defeating darkness, and encircling the viewer, placing them physically within the impressionist garden's better world.
In conclusion, the Impressionists' love for gardens was a multifaceted phenomenon. It was about the sensory intensity, the nostalgia for rural existence, and the garden as an 'attachment environment'. The artists' fascination with gardens was a reflection of their desire to capture the present moment and their search for a better world. As an art historian, I find this obsession particularly fascinating, and I encourage readers to explore the rich tapestry of the Impressionists' relationship with gardens.
