[Exhibition] Discover Monet’s Japanese Water Garden

The Great Artist shows us the Essence of Various Landscapes 

It is a pleasure for the eye and peace to the mind – to see the spirit of selected landscapes and the ever changing natural beauty on Claude Monet’s canvas.

The founder of French Impressionist painting is not only a famous painter, but a masterful colourist and gardener, combining his love of nature and art in his works. This exhibition features 17 of Monet’s most emblematic paintings, pastels and tapestries conserved in French public collections, showcasing his career through landscapes. In moving from a style inspired by past landscape artists to a more personal approach, he moved from the simple representation of a place to the production of a series of paintings and to modern art. In the exhibition, the Monet’s most emblematic artworks conserved in both French public and private collections including Nymphéas, La Débâcle à Vétheuil, avec vue sur Lavacourt and Effet de Printemps à Giverny, will show you the great artist’s selected landscapes. 

Come visit the exhibition and discover Monet’s Japanese Water Garden!

Monet began gardening in Argenteuil, where he met the painter Gustave Caillebotte. Monet’s gardens in Argenteuil and Vétheuil were modest affairs. However, his water garden in Giverny was a creation on a much larger scale. It took several years to develop, and involved several administrative hurdles. It featured a pond, which was fed by a neighbouring stream, and a green Japanese bridge on its western bank. In 1901, Monet tripled the size of the pond. He created an artificial island, which was connected to the shore by four small bridges. Working with his head gardener Félix Breuil and a team of five men, Monet planted several species of water lilies in different shades of white, mauve, pink and green. These plants bloomed in spring and flowered all summer. As the flowers only opened during the day, Monet gave tours of the garden before they closed at around 5 p.m. 

This installation gives you an opportunity to visit the garden in Giverny. Using the digital tablets placed around the pond, paint your own water lilies onto the collective artwork inspired by Monet’s works.

Claude Monet's biography

Claude Monet is one of the leaders of the French Impressionist movement of the 1870s and 1880s.  His painting in 1873, Impression, Sunrise was taken as the name of this art style.  As an inspirational talent and a pioneer, Monet brought his fellow artists together.  Inspired by the Realist’s interest to paint in the open area, he began working outdoors in the late 1850s.  Since then till his death in 1926, he painted selected landscapes in France and Europe, such as Normandy, Giverny, London and Venice. 

With his series paintings, he brought the realistic technique to one of his most famous pinnacles.  The art pieces were created through his observations of the same subject, which was viewed at different hours of the day, he would stay or several weeks, months or years, sometimes living there with his family.  In this way, his works explored all possible viewpoints, seasons and variations, as well as adding the unique feeling of a particular area.  A masterful colourist and as a painter of light and atmosphere, his later works achieved a remarkable degree of abstraction and at the same time captured the spirit of the places in numerous sequences of paintings.   His genius and perseverance ensured the images he composed became universally renowned.  

For nearly 70 years, Monet diligently depicted around a dozen places, with the creation journey began on the Normandy coast, where he grew up; and ended in Giverny, where he spent his last days – a place he painted by combining natural elements: air, earth and water.  His canvases, painted over many hours and many seasons, captured the momentary effects of light, atmosphere and imperceptible differences constituting a landscape’s essence or spirit.  We can understand his appreciation of nature and his transformation from simple illustration of places to series of paintings and modern art in this exhibition. 

Monet developed a completely new approach to painting from 1800 onwards when he was in Normandy.  The artist’s paintings showed the place’s two essential features: sea and earth, with the changing sky reflected in the sea; the waves and tides; the changing effects of light.  Starting with a large fishing port and seaside resort Fecamp, he painted 21 landscapes, mostly from the top of cliffs presenting unusual viewpoints.   He then went to Pourville where he learned to focus on a few motifs and painted in every possible way, ended up completing around 30 works there.  

Giverny is a remarkable location for Monet.  He created his later compositions here, stepping away from the Western painting traditions and moving towards abstraction.

Follow the great artist’s creation route and discover the essence and beauty of all these places. 

... For more please view the original page. 

Opening Hours:
Monday, Wednesday to Friday: 10am - 6pm
Saturday, Sunday and public holidays: 10am - 7pm
Closed on Tuesdays (except public holidays)

Admission* (per person):
$20  Adults
$14  Groups of 20 persons or more
$10  Full-time students, people with disabilities (and one accompanying minder) and senior citizens aged 60 or above

Wednesdays：
$10  Adults
$7   Groups of 20 persons or more
$5   Full-time students, people with disabilities (and one accompanying minder) and senior citizens aged 60 or above

Free admission for Museum Pass, Monthly Pass holders and children under 4 years old

* The box office will be closed 30 minutes before the Museum closes

For more: http://2016.frenchmay.com/ 

Event Date: Wednesday, May 4, 2016 - Monday, July 11, 2016, 10:00am - 7:00pm

Pricing Info: $20 Adults/more see website 

Booking Phone Number: (852) 3761 6661

Place Address: MTR: A 5-minute walk from Che Kung Temple Station or a 15-minute walk from Sha Tin or Tai Wai Station or see original website for detailed address. 

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