Painting the Modern Garden ─ Monet to Matisse

“I perhaps owe it to flowers that I have become a painter.”—Claude Monet

While depictions of gardens are found throughout history, the impressionists were among the first to portray gardens directly from life, focusing on their color and form rather than using them as a background. This volume explores the close, symbiotic relationship between artists and gardens that developed during the latter part of the 19th and first part of the 20th centuries, centering on Monet, a great horticulturalist as well as a great artist who cultivated gardens wherever he lived, and the creation of his masterpiece garden at Giverny, where he painted his renowned water-lilies series.

Beautifully illustrated with masterpieces by Monet and later painters—Renoir, Bonnard, Sargent, Klee, Kandinsky, and Matisse, among others—Painting the Modern Garden traces the evolution of the garden theme from impressionist visions of light and atmosphere to retreats for reverie, sites for bold experimentation, sanctuaries, and, ultimately, signifiers of a world restored to order—a paradise regained.

Monty Don is a horticulturalist who has written widely on gardens and gardening.

Ann Dumas is a curator at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Heather Lemonedes is curator of drawings at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

James Priest is head gardener at Monet’s garden at Giverny.

William Robinson is curator of modern European art at the Cleveland Museum.

Clare A.P. Willsdon is senior lecturer in the history of art at the University of Glasgow.