Determination is the keynote of Monet’s character, as the following anecdote (told me on the spot by the poet Rollinat) shows. In the spring of 1892 the artist was busily occupied painting in the neighbourhood of Fresselines, a wild and picturesque region of precipitous cliffs and huge boulders in the valleys of the Creuse and Petit Creuse. A huge oak-tree, standing out in bold relief against the ruddy cliffs, was occupying Monet’s whole attention. Studies of it were taken at every possible angle, in every varying atmosphere of the day. Bad weather intervened, wet and foggy, and operations were suspended for three weeks. When Monet set up his easel again the tree was in full bud, and completely metamorphosed. An average painter would have quitted the spot in disgust. Not so Monet. Without hesitation he called out the whole village, made the carpenter foreman, and gave imperative orders that not a single leaf was to be visible by the same hour on the following morning. The work was accomplished, and next day Monet was able to continue work upon his canvases. One admires the painter, and feels sorry for the unhappy tree.
After painting, Monet’s chief recreation is gardening. In his domain at Giverny, and in his Japanese water-garden across the road and railway (which to his lasting sorrow cuts his little world in twain), each season of the year brings its appointed and distinguishing colour scheme. Nowhere else can be found such a prodigal display of rare and marvellously beautiful colour effects, arranged from flowering plants gathered together without regard to expense from every quarter of the globe.
Like the majority of Impressionists, Monet is most pleased with schemes of yellow and blue, the gold and sapphire of an artist’s dreams.
A RIVER SCENE · CLAUDE MONET
In the neighbouring fields are hundreds of poplars standing in long regimental lines. These trees, which inspired Les Peupliers, were bought by Monet to avoid the wholesale destruction which threatened every tree in the Seine valley a few years ago. The building authorities of the Paris Exhibition required materials for palisading, and thousands of trees were ruthlessly felled to make a cosmopolitan holiday.
A LADY IN HER GARDEN · CLAUDE MONET
In the distance are the mills, subjects of the master’s admiration and reproduction, yearly copied by the scores of students and amateurs who, year by year, during the summer, journey through this delightful country.
In the peace of Giverny we leave the great painter. He is one of the few original members of the Impressionist group who has lived to see the almost complete reversal of the hostile judgment passed upon his canvases by an ill-educated public. Now he is able to enjoy not only the satisfaction of having his principles acknowledged, but also the receipt of the material fruits of a world-wide renown. Not often do pioneers succeed so thoroughly.