In Giverny, an exhibition traces the origins of Monet's Water Lilies

Claude Monet's love at first sight for Giverny at the heart of an exhibition for the centenary of the painter's death. 100 years ago, in December 1926, the painter Claude Monet passed away. Kick-off for this centenary: an exhibition devoted to the artist's early years in Giverny, the Norman village where he would live the last 43 years of his life. Read later Comment Share Article written by franceinfo Radio France Published on 27/03/2026 09:03 Updated 23 minutes ago Reading time: 3min Claude Monet in his garden in Giverny (Eure), on December 21, 1899. (Library of Congress / Corbis Historical) Claude Monet in his garden at Giverny (Eure), December 21, 1899. (Library of Congress / Corbis Historical) The works of Claude Monet are among the most difficult to collect. To mark the 100th anniversary of his death, around thirty of them joined the Museum of Impressionisms in Giverny for the first celebration of this centenary, a unique opportunity to see paintings in the very places where they were painted. Read also: video When Monet settled in Giverny with his blended family, he was "a pioneer in this form of family composition" "For this centenary, we wanted a new subject that made sense in Giverny," explains Marie Delbarre, one of the two curators of the exhibition. The idea of focusing on the early years when he learned to tame the landscapes of Giverny, where he decided to stay, was, for us, a beautiful way to pay tribute to him." "A man constantly searching for new motifs" Giverny owes much to Claude Monet and vice versa. When the artist settled there in 1883, he was 43 years old. He is in the middle of his life and he has not yet known fame. "This period is a pivotal one," says Cyrille Sciama, director of the Museum of Impressionisms. Monet is a mature man, who will gradually move from a precarious situation to a comfortable one." Because Giverny would be a tremendous source of inspiration for him. "He will renew his palette, renew his touch, his inspiration through contact with Giverny." Cyrille Sciama, director of the Museum of Impressionisms, told franceinfo, "He will first focus on the hills, the hollow paths. Then he goes to look for the water that is hidden behind the poplars and weeping willows. And then he will obviously look at agricultural life, haystacks but also wheat stacks, with a desire to paint very hypnotic landscapes with light variations, especially on the haystacks but also the poppies, explains Cyrille Sciama. He is a man who is constantly searching for new motives.” According to the museum director, "visitors will discover works they are not used to seeing. Although he often knows Monet through images of the Saint-Lazare station, cathedrals or poppy fields, he will be able to explore, in addition to familiar motifs, poplars, haystacks, some rather original points of view on the hillsides, winter scenes, fog, rain or even the Epte...". The haystack is a recurring motif for Monet. The one from the Ohara Museum in Japan was painted on the very spot where the Museum of Impressionisms is located today. Monet's companion, Alice Hoschedé, can be seen there. "We see Alice Hoschedé with one of the children, certainly Michel or Jean-Pierre, leaning against the shade of a haystack," describes Cyrille Sciama. Behind, the meadow, Monet's house, the poplar trees." "It's a totally iconic image of Impressionism and it's moving to see this work return to the place where it was created." Cyrille Sciama to franceinfo In Giverny, Claude Monet also painted the Epte river and the Seine, sometimes from a boat, as in the painting "Bras de Seine à Giverny". "It's a canvas entirely in shades of green, blue, and mauve," describes Marie Delbarre. The foreground is filled by a mirror of water dotted with vegetation and surrounded by overhanging trees, with a mystery of shadow and reflection plays that fascinated Monet and which we can think he sought to reproduce the atmosphere in his pond,” this pond which he would create a few years later and which would be the object of all his attention until his death on December 5, 2026. He was 86 years old. The exhibition Before the Water Lilies, Monet Discovers Giverny (New Window), 1883-1890, can be seen at the Museum of Impressionisms in Giverny until July 5.

The centenary of Claude Monet's death begins where everything changed for him: in Giverny. With the exhibition "Before the Water Lilies: Monet Discovers Giverny, 1883-1890," the Musée des Impressionnismes has chosen to revisit not his final masterpieces, but the years of settling in, observing, and developing that made the Water Lilies adventure possible. It's a very fitting way to approach Monet from the very beginning, at the moment when the painter discovered a territory that would gradually become the center of his life and work.

The years when Monet tamed Giverny

When Claude Monet settled in Giverny in 1883, he was 43 years old and didn't yet know that he would spend the last 43 years of his life there. This period, which the exhibition intelligently isolates, is one of gradual rootedness. The artist, long a nomad, finally found a place of his own. There, he refined his vision, transformed his way of painting, and began to explore with a new attentiveness what immediately surrounded him: the hillsides, the paths, the fields, the poplars, the Epte River, the Seine, the haystacks, the mists, the rains.

That's the whole point of this exhibition: to show a Monet before his iconic works. Before the vast expanses of water and the almost abstract visions of the garden, there is a painter attuning himself to a landscape. He doesn't yet dominate it; he discovers it, tests it, repeats it, scrutinizes it at different times of day, in different lights. The exhibition precisely follows this slow familiarization, as if Monet's eye were learning to inhabit Giverny before making it a world.

An exhibition that sheds light on the birth of an obsession

The thirty or so works gathered together allow us to witness, almost in real time, the formation of what would become his great obsession: the relationship between water, light, vegetation, and their infinite variations. Some canvases already depict mirrors of water, reflections, and masses of trees and foliage that subtly but clearly foreshadow the future pond. The visitor then understands that the Water Lilies did not appear suddenly: they are the fruit of years of observation, experimentation, and a deep connection to a place.

The choice to dedicate this centenary opening to this period of genesis is particularly inspired. Rather than exhibiting the celebrated Monet once again, the museum shows Monet in the process of becoming Monet. And in Giverny, this approach takes on a special power: the paintings return, in a way, to the very places of their birth. This gives the whole exhibition a unique, almost visceral, emotional impact. We are no longer simply looking at major Impressionist works; we are witnessing the birth of an inner world.