Welcome to Monet's house and garden.
Yeah, that's not it.
However, if you just slightly turn this way, the whole other side of this
fence is an absolute impressionistic paradise.
We are just not even an hour outside of Paris in Giverny,
an absolutely beautiful, beautiful city.
And yes, I'm going to help you understand how in the world was this
empty field, then turned into this gorgeous,
amazing place that Monet completely changed on his own.
Cannot wait for us to tour this gorgeous house
and property.
Claude Monet was born on November 14th, 1840, in Paris in 1845.
His family moved to Le Havre in Normandy.
Monet's mother was a singer, and his father wanted him
to go into the family grocery store business.
But Monet wanted to become an artist.
Monet is one of the few artists who actually saw fame while still alive.
Thanks to works such as Sunrise at Le Havre, which hung
in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874.
In 1883, Monet moved to Giverny with his two sons, his friend Alice
and her six children.
They would later get married in 1892,
and Monet would spend the rest of his life building the most beautiful
garden and painting just about every perspective of it.
I met up with Chloe, =
an art historian and official guide here at Monet's House
and Gardens, to get a behind the scenes look at this impressionistic paradise.
Chloe, so great to meet you.
I'm excited to be here.
It has been, like, way too long.
I know a little.
You know a lot.
So excited to learn from you.
The last time I was here was Summer, and it was totally different.
Now here we are in spring and there are tulips, like, exploding everywhere.
Like there's color everywhere. It's. It's an artist paradise.
His passion for Japanese prints, obviously Japanese garden.
But, you know, it's just amazing.
They're covered like all of the wall.
It's incredible. Yes.
Well, it's.
I know, like what
Van Gogh loved Japanese prints as well,
which you can see why they're super colorful and they love color.
So. Yeah, and I love the photo of him just standing there.
Get a feel.
It looks just like it.
Yeah, well, I mean, come on, we're in France.
That's what you have to do.
So I can relate.
Yeah, it was very small. Right. Right.
Yeah.
Good reminder, though, to, you know, forget that like this is a big house.
It's a lot of property.
But he's one of the few artists at that time who actually finally did
make some money, became famous, thankfully, while still alive.
So, yeah, wow, this is a huge kitchen.
So even though this is an interior
studio, yeah, they're still huge,
huge windows bringing in tons of light, which I would expect he would want.
So okay.
I thought that was what you were thinking.
So I wanted to make sure we stepped inside.
This is the biggest studio space I've ever seen.
If you look across the walls back here, there are massive panels
where Monet did is huge installation pieces.
And this is the room that he painted them in, which, of course, they turn it into
the shop. Makes sense. But they left these panels up.
So you just have a better sense of like, what was happening in here.
Which many people may not know, but
pretty amazing, isn't it?
First time I was here, I could not believe how big it is.
I mean, it's connected. It goes underneath the tunnel.
So when he came here, was all of this garden already here or did
he like you're saying that he planned it and planted to be a certain way?
Now, I understand why he was so obsessed with painting
so many different times of year because things changed so much here.
It's incredible.
So we moved basically across the street would have been into another
beautiful garden.
Yeah.
Tell me about this, because it's feels totally different in some ways.
Great, a field.
It kind of feels like already.
So almost like as I'm looking probably outside of the property,
something that looks like this, like it's plain, it's simple.
Just grass. Without any water.
Without any water? What I just assumed...
Okay, tell me more.
So if the whole thing's full of water.
Looking over here now, it makes sense.
Like this is what it looked like.
Wow. All right.
Just he took half of it and then made this gorgeousness.
Nothing like that. Okay, well, this is better. So.
name the water lilies.
Right, of course. Yeah.
But they're not were all wrong, were all wrong!
Nymphea are in fact
a hybrid of water lilies and lotus flowers.
This plant hybrid from Japan was first presented at the World's Fair in Paris
in 1889.
Of course, presented alongside Monet's other favorite Japanese prints.
Which is crazy, that they even was working at that time.
Yes. Okay.
The minute you visit Giverny,
you understand why Monet moved here and spent the rest of his life
creating this beautiful garden with endless perspectives to paint.
Well, thank you so much, Chloe.
I learned so much from you, and your expertise are fantastic.
And the fact that they're not really water lilies,
I'm just blowing my mind. So, anyway.
My pleasure. Yeah.
Thank you