Joseph Xu by University of Dundee Research

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my Supervisor, Tania Kovats, for providing invaluable guidance and feedback throughout the writing of this dissertation. I would also like to thank Dr Helen Gørrill, the module lead, for providing support and encouragement for this project.

In addition, I would like to thank my Advisor of Studies, Phil Braham, for sharing his artistic knowledge and wisdom, which has been important to my development as an artist.

Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support and patience during this challenging academic year.

Table of Figures

Figure 1.1: Édouard Manet, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe [Luncheon on the Grass]

Figure 1.2: Titian, Pastoral Concert

Figure 1.3: Marcantonio Raimondi, after Raphael, The Judgement of Paris

Figure 1.4: Nicolas Poussin, Spring

Figure 1.5: Édouard Manet, Olympia

Figure 1.6: Claude Monet, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe

Figure 1.7: Andy Earl, album cover art of See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy!

Figure 2.1: Claude Monet, Japanese Footbridge and the Water Lily Pool, Giverny

Figure 2.2: Utagawa Hiroshige, Wisteria at Kameido Tenjin Shrine

Figure 2.3: Claude Monet, Water Lilies

Figure 2.4: Claude Monet, The Japanese Bridge

Figure 2.5: View of the first room of Grandes Décorations at the Musée de l’Orangerie

Figure 2.6: View of the second room of Grandes Décorations at the Musée de l’Orangerie

Figure 2.7: Jackson Pollock, One: Number 31, 1950

Figure 2.8: Mark Rothko, No. 36 (Black Stripe)

Figure 3.1: Paul Sérusier, The Talisman

Figure 3.2: Pierre Bonnard, Blue Balcony

Figure 3.3: Pierre Bonnard, The Garden

Figure 3.4: Pierre Bonnard, The Little Window

Figure 3.5: Pierre Bonnard, The Little Window (View from the Painter’s Bedroom)

Figure 3.6: Pierre Bonnard, The Artist’s Garden at Le Cannet

Introduction

Throughout the history of art, woods and gardens have played a vital role in both as a subject matter and as inspiration for artists. During the medieval period, the garden was depicted with strong biblical themes, such as the Virgin Mary in the garden (Seventh Art Productions, 2016). In the Baroque period, vast formal gardens were created and came to symbolise the wealth and power of monarchs in Europe (ibid.). Technological advancements in the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century profoundly changed gardening – hybridisation of plants and flowers produced plants with stronger colours and more attractive forms, and the public would attend flower shows that showcased the latest developments in horticulture (ibid.). Exotic, never seen before plants began to be imported from across the world, which fascinated audiences in the Western world (ibid.). The creation of greenhouses allowed plants to survive during the cold months of winter. Gardening as an activity for pleasure came with the rise of the middle class (Willsdon, 2010, p. 14), and people began to grow private gardens. Artists at the time were obsessed with these new advancements and created their own gardens at their own homes as a source of inspiration or subject matter for their work.

This dissertation will discuss how woods and gardens have inspired avant-garde artists in the 19th and 20th centuries in France to abandon the standards expected from the Academy of Fine Arts that were the norm for centuries, and whose works were widely panned by critics and audiences when first exhibited, to later becoming popular, as well as becoming some of the most sought-after and expensive in the world (Thomson and Howard, 1989, p. 10).

Having spent a day in the garden and water lily pond of Claude Monet in Giverny in France in late-spring, I became fascinated with how humans can create spaces to grow colourful plants and flowers to create works of art from. I of course was not the only one who was drawn to the magnificent displays of colour in the garden –thousands of visitors from all over the world were too on the day I visited. As I wandered around the gravel pathways, one thought came to mind – as beautiful as Monet’s garden is, how many of the visitors realised that they were walking around a

space that was fundamental in the shaping of modern art and that had an important role in art and gardening history?

I believe that the importance of gardens in art is a subject that has not been widely discussed today and I wish to expand more on this topic. The Musée d’Orsay in Paris which houses one of the largest and most important collections of 19th and 20th century art in the world, is one of the most visited art museums in the world, welcoming over three million visitors every year (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024).

Audiences of today may see the works of the French Impressionists and PostImpressionists that depict scenes in woods and gardens as beautiful or romantic, but the fact that these paintings were radical at the time they were produced and their importance in the development of modern art is often not taken into consideration.

In Chapter 1, I will discuss how Édouard Manet’s painting Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe [Luncheon on the Grass] created controversy with audiences at the time, how it influenced later artists and why it continues to be a controversial painting in the present day. Chapter 2 will discuss Monet’s water lily pond, its significance to him as a painter as well as the importance of his Water Lilies series on the development of modern and abstract art, as well as the significance of the paintings today. Chapter 3 will discuss the importance of Pierre Bonnard’s garden at his home in the French Riviera on his composition and depiction of colour

Finally, a conclusion will be drawn to summarise the main points discussed in this dissertation.

Chapter 1: Édouard Manet and Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe

Figure 1.1: Édouard Manet, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe [Luncheon on the Grass], 1863, oil on canvas, 207 x 265 cm Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Édouard Manet (1832-83) grew up in a bourgeois family with his father supporting him financially to become an artist (Tucker, 1998, p. 15) and was a pupil of Thomas Couture, a successful academic painter who taught him to paint using methods and techniques that had been the norm for centuries in French painting (Perspective, 2023). Manet was fascinated with the works of the Old Masters in the Louvre, and he enjoyed producing copies of their works in his sketchbooks (Tucker, 1998, p. 14).

While in Couture’s studio, the young Manet was dissatisfied with the academic approach to creating work. Models in the studio would pose in heroic ways, and Manet felt that the poses were unrealistic as people did not make these poses while shopping at a market (Perspective, 2023).

Manet was influenced by the writings of French poet and critic Charles Baudelaire who was searching for a painter who could capture modern life in an appropriate, non-superficial manner (Thomson and Howard, 1989, p 7) A major influence was the works of the Realist painter Gustave Courbet, who believed that subjects should be painted from life (Tucker, 1998, p. 20). Manet was also inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e prints, which had been imported to France in the second half of the 19th century (Ives, 2004). What he liked in particular about these woodblock prints was the flat compositions, large areas of flat colour and focus on decorative patterns, all very different to traditional Western art. It was Manet’s dissatisfaction with French academic traditions and his desire to depict modern society that were the main factors in shaping his artistic approach

Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Figure 1.1) features four figures, two well-dressed men and a naked woman who is looking outside of the painting towards the viewer, sitting together on grass in a wooded area beside a stream, with a loosely dressed female figure in the background, bathing in the stream and appearing too big in terms of perspective. Also in the background is a rowboat above the head of the male figure on the right. The tree trunks on the left and right of the painting, as well as the foliage at the top create a frame around the scene. Additionally, there is a still life at the bottom left hand corner, featuring clothes, a hat, a metal lunch box, a basket with fruit and a loaf of bread, all of them painted with brushstrokes still visible. In some areas of the foliage, the paint has been applied so thinly and loosely that it would make the viewer feel that those areas were unfinished – the paint used for the sky and clouds can still be seen through the green paint.

With his admiration of paintings by the Old Masters, Manet appropriated the image of the seated figures in Titian’s painting Pastoral Concert (Figure 1.2) with the two men sitting on grass beside a nude (Tucker, 1998, p. 12), as well as the arrangement of the seated water nymph and two river gods at the bottom right of Marcantonio Raimondi’s engraving The Judgement of Paris (Figure 1.3) (ibid. p. 18). Aside from reusing the arrangement of figures from the latter, Manet has given the male figures modern clothes of his time and has swapped the reeds for a walking stick for the male figure on the right to reinforce his modernity.

Figure 1.2: Titian (previously attributed to Giorgione), Pastoral Concert, c. 1509-10, oil on canvas, 105 x 137 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Figure 1.3: Marcantonio Raimondi, after Raphael, The Judgement of Paris, c. 1510-20, engraving, 29.1 x 43.7 cm. Current location unknown.

The painting was submitted to the Salon of 1863 where it was rejected by the Salon jury (Tucker, 1998, p. 17). Having works of art approved by the jury to be displayed at the state-sponsored Paris Salon was considered to be a vital step for any artist to become successful in France, as it demonstrated the skills and talents of the artist (ibid. p. 15). In fact, over half of the 5,000 paintings submitted were rejected – this led to a lot of anger among artists whose works were rejected, who felt that the Salon had become too conservative (ibid. p. 18). The anger resulted in Emperor Napoleon III creating an additional exhibition, the Salon des Refusés, where artists who had work rejected from the official Salon could choose to display their work instead (Cohen, 2019) Manet chose to exhibit at the Salon des Refusés and his painting was met with widespread derision from the public and art critics at the time (Takac, 2019). The figures were rendered with a flatness that disregarded painting conventions taught by the École des Beaux-Arts. Particular scorn was directed at the female figure – she is not idealised – she is naked but not nude. She is a modern woman – she is not a nymph or a goddess. At first, the meaning of the painting is not immediately clear to the viewer, however upon closer inspection, there is a frog at the far bottom left – it represents lasciviousness – this is a key element in the understanding of the painting. The location of the scene is not clear either, but with the sexual connotations of the frog in mind, the setting could potentially be either the Bois de Boulogne or Bois de Vincennes, two wooded areas on the outskirts of Paris notorious for prostitution (The Economist, 2012). This suggests that the woman is a prostitute – this, along with the setting of the wood, indicates that Manet is depicting a scene of prostitution taking place in the woods around Paris at the time.

The setting of the wood is important in understanding in the negative reaction towards Manet’s painting. Woods in classical French painting, such as those by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), were seen as places of paradise (Rosenberg and Christiansen, 2008, p. 83). Paintings featuring woods often depicted saints and other religious figures gathering, relaxing and meditating. Whilst in Manet’s painting the figures are relaxing in the woods, the artist presents the viewer with a darker vision of an otherwise idyllic setting. Thus, the unfamiliar subject matter of a prostitute sitting amongst wealthy men in a wooded setting would have been considered abhorrent and unsuitable as a subject in a painting by the jurors of the Salon.

Figure 1.4: Nicolas Poussin, Spring, c. 1660-4, oil on canvas, 118 x 160 cm.

The naked woman seated in the foreground beside the two male figures is Manet’s favourite model Victorine Meurent, while the male figure holding a cane sitting across from her is Manet’s younger brother Eugène (Thomson and Howard, 1989, p. 101). The inclusion of the clothes on the bottom left suggests that the female figure has taken them off and left them to the side, and she will put them back on after getting up. Her gaze was a source of controversy, she is either looking at the viewer or looking beyond the viewer, not ashamed of her nakedness. Some felt that her gaze was inviting the viewer to take part in sexual activities (Takac, 2019). Meurent would appear in one of Manet’s later paintings, Olympia (Figure 1.5), where she was also painted naked with his characteristic flatness of paint and appropriation of Titian’s Venus of Urbino (Tucker, 1998, p. 24; Anapur, 2023). It too caused a scandal when it was exhibited in the official Salon (Perspective, 2023) It seems that Manet knew that his work would shock people and stir controversy, and it was the notoriety he gained that would inspire later artists to disregard the rules of academic tradition

It is important to note the size of Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe – it is a large painting, and paintings of its size were usually for depicting significant religious and mythological scenes (Tucker, 1998, p 11) Additionally, paintings at the official Salon were prized depending on their genre, in order from depictions of historical scenes, portraiture, landscape and finally, still-lifes (Cohen, 2019). Manet has incorporated all these genres into his painting – this, along with the lack of an idealised finish could be seen as Manet insulting French academic traditions. Art was taken very seriously in France at the time (Tucker, 1998, p. 15), and this makes it clear that the depiction of a prostitute would have shocked audiences. Paintings were expected to have dark, earthy colours and a smooth finish without traces of brushstrokes.

Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe and Olympia made Manet a notorious figure in the Parisian art scene. He would visit the Café Guerbois near his studio on evenings and met a group of young artists who were intrigued by the notoriety of his work (Perspective, 2023). Members of this artist group included Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, all of whom wished to be painters of modern life. Unlike Manet, the majority of these artists did not come from privileged backgrounds (ibid.). These artists painted outdoors, en plein air, attempting to capture the energy of

Figure 1.5: Édouard Manet, Olympia, 1863-5, oil on canvas, 130.5 x 191 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

modern Paris, with a focus on the effects of light (Samu, 2004). In addition to discussing ideas together, Manet helped support them in organising their own independent exhibition, featuring works only by artists from their group, as an alternative venue to the Salon, which opened in 1874 (Perspective, 2023). This would later become known this the First Impressionist Exhibition, the term ‘Impressionism’ deriving from a critique of Claude Monet’s painting Impression, Sunrise (Samu, 2004). Manet refused to exhibit work with them, preferring to submit his own work to the Salon (Perspective, 2023). These young artists shared the same beliefs as Manet, thinking that traditional academic painting was too restrictive and was becoming outdated. The fact that they painted outdoors was different to Manet, which sets him apart from this group of artists.

The creation of the Salon des Réfusés in 1863 can be described as a major turning point in French art history, with Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe playing a central role Manet’s intention of creating a painting of modern life while remaining connected to the art that was produced before him inspired later avant-garde artists to break with tradition, such as the Impressionists. The importance of the official Salon began to decline, with the French government withdrawing funding for the Salon in 1880 (Kelly, 2023, p. 449), leading to smaller venues gaining prominence. Artists took inspiration from Manet’s painting, such as Claude Monet who painted his own version (Figure 1.6) between 1865 and 1866 (Cohen, 2019) His version uses a more vivid colour palette and depicts a more everyday scene of leisure. Pablo Picasso admired Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, and he produced paintings taking inspiration from it in his later career (Tucker, 1998, p. 1).

The notoriety of Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe has persisted and it continues to stir controversy today. Some viewers have drawn comparisons with Marxism, as Karl Marx was, at the time it was painted, observing the living conditions of factory workers in Manchester (Cohen, 2019). From this viewpoint, the painting highlights the polarising differences between the working and upper classes Feminist viewpoints have been made as well, as the painting could be seen as a comment on the roles of women in society at the time (ibid.). Regardless of the meaning that Manet wished to convey, the painting became one of the most important paintings in art history and has established itself as an iconic piece of 19th century French painting.

The painting has even been referenced in popular culture, such as on the cover of British band Bow Wow Wow’s 1981 album See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! (Figure 1.7). In this album cover, Manet’s painting is re-enacted in a photograph, with the band members sitting on grass in a

Figure 1.6: Claude Monet, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, 1865-6, oil on canvas, 248.7 x 218 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

wooded area, in similar poses to the figures in Manet’s painting, with the lead singer Annabella Lwin explicitly naked and gazing out of the photograph towards the viewer The cover art caused controversy just like Manet’s painting nearly 120 years earlier. Unlike Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe where controversy arose due to the painting techniques and depiction of a naked woman sitting next to well-dressed men, the source of the controversy of Bow Wow Wow’s album cover stems more from the fact that an image featuring a typical female sitting naked in a public space was being used for packaging for a product intended for a mass audience. The most controversial part of the album cover is that Lwin was only 14 years old when she was photographed – this led to Lwin’s mother raising concerns about child pornography (McLean, 2012), as her daughter was underage. The members of the band knew that the cover art for their album would spark debate (ibid.). To Bow Wow Wow, Manet’s painting represented rebellion, they wanted to shock audiences just as Manet did at the Salon des Refusés over a century earlier.

Figure 1.7: Andy Earl, album cover art of See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy!, 1981.

Chapter 2: Claude Monet and his water lily pond

Claude Monet (1840-1926) lived in several rented properties along the River Seine near Paris, first in Argenteuil, then in Vétheuil and later further downstream in Giverny in Normandy (Seventh Art Productions, 2016) With his love of nature, plants and flowers, he would create gardens at each one of his residences. In fact, he loved flowers so much that he said, “perhaps I owe it to flowers, that I became a painter” (Cumming, 2016). The most spectacular of the gardens was at his home Le Pressoir in Giverny – he began renting there in 1883 before purchasing it in 1890 with financial assistance from the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who ardently supported Monet and the other Impressionists (Kelly, 2023, p. 447). It was difficult for Monet at the beginning, he was poor and the local people of Giverny treated his arrival in the village with suspicion (Seventh Art Productions, 2016). In 1893, he applied for planning permission to acquire and develop a plot of land on the opposite side of the railway line beside the far end of his garden in order to create a water lily pond, but this was met with objections from the local people, though he would eventually get the required planning permission to proceed (ibid.). This was an ambitious plan, as it involved diverting an arm of the River Epte, a tributary of the Seine to provide water for the water lily pond (Groom, 2020) With his fascination of Japanese art, he lined the pond with weeping willow trees and bamboo shoots, as well as installing two Japanese-style bridges, one of which he covered with wisteria.

Monet was influenced by the writings on colour theory by Eugène Chevreul. Chevreul believed that one perceives a colour differently when it is adjacent to other contrasting colours, and this would in turn change how the other colours around it are perceived (Ives, Clark and Walter, 2018, pp. 100-1). Monet would incorporate these ideas into his painting to capture the effects of light and colour, as well as in his gardening to create areas of contrasting colours. He encountered Joseph Bory Latour-Marliac’s new hybrid species of water lilies at the World’s Fair of 1889 in Paris, which ranged from intense yellows to pinks and dark reds which differed from the usual white ones seen in France (Groom, 2020). Fascinated by their vibrant colours, Monet decided to order seeds of these novel water lily species so that he could grow his own at Giverny that he could paint from (Seventh Art Productions,

2016). Through this, his painting and his water lily pond became synonymous – his water lily pond would form the basis of his painting, and through his painting, he would tweak the design and elements of the water lily pond to better suit his tastes in composition and colour. Thus, his gardens and water lily pond can themselves be considered artworks. To him, it was like an abode far away from the bustling streets and hectic life of Paris where he could further explore the everchanging effects of light, colour and atmosphere.

Left: Figure 2.1: Claude Monet, Japanese Footbridge and the Water Lily Pool, Giverny, 1899, oil on canvas, 89.2 x 93.3 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.

Right: Figure 2.2: Utagawa Hiroshige, Wisteria at Kameido Tenjin Shrine, 1856, woodblock print, 35.9 x 23.8 cm. British Museum, London.

Monet and the other Impressionist artists became more accepted by the public towards the end of the 19th century, thanks to Durand-Ruel selling their work in the United States, attracting many buyers there (Kelly, 2023, p. 449). This brought international awareness of Impressionism and the United States became the main market for Impressionist paintings at this time. Monet’s wealth began to increase, and he became a successful artist. Given the size of his estate in Giverny, maintaining it himself was an enormous task. With his newly acquired wealth, he

hired six gardeners to tend to the gardens and water lily pond daily (ibid. p. 437). He no longer needed to worry about his finances, and this allowed him to dedicate more time into painting his cherished water lilies.

With the growing success of Impressionism, Gustave Caillebotte decided to give a collection of Impressionist paintings to the French state in 1894 (Stair Sainty, 2024). This was not well-received by prolific academic painters at the time such as Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), who scolded the decision made by the French government to accept the artworks. He was widely regarded as one of the most successful French academic painters of the 19th century, but towards the end of his career, his work declined in popularity with the rise of Impressionism, and in turn his work, as well as the works of other academic painters, began to be criticised. He published his views in the L’Éclair journal (ibid.):

“The Institute cannot remain still before such a scandal… How can the government dare welcome such a collection of inanities into a museum? Why, have you seen the collection? The state the ward of such junk! The Luxembourg Museum is a school. What lessons are our young artists going to receive there from now on? They’ll all start to do Impressionism! Ah! these people believe they are painting nature, nature so admirable in all its manifestations! What pretension! Nature is not for them! This Monet, do you remember his cathedrals? And that man used to know how to paint! Yes, I’ve seen good things by him, but now!”

Gérôme, still following the strict rules set by the French Academy in his artwork, is understandably outraged at the works of the Impressionists for breaking all of the rules and traditions that had been the norm for centuries. He has however, correctly identified that the avant-garde Impressionist paintings would have a major influence on later generations of artists.

The 1910s saw Monet experience numerous difficulties – the water lily pond become flooded in 1910 when the Seine burst its banks, his second wife Alice died in 1911, followed by his son Jean in 1914 (Temkin and Lawrence, 2009, p. 6). To make matters worse, he was facing a new tragedy – the deterioration of his eyesight due to cataracts (ibid.), which he did not undergo surgery for until 1923 (Sagner-Düchting, 1994, p. 90) He almost gave in to despair, thinking that he would never be able to

paint again due to his eye condition. He wished to stop painting altogether until convinced by his stepdaughter Blanche Hoschedé Monet and close friend Georges Clemenceau (who would later become the prime minister of France), to continue painting (ibid. p. 68) With his eyesight deteriorating, he started working at a larger scale with much looser brushstrokes. He built a large studio space in 1915 to accommodate larger canvases (ibid. p. 70). Given the sizes of them, he did not paint everything directly en plein air – he finished works in this studio using his memory and with preparatory drawings to help him (ibid. p. 71). By working at a large scale, it forced him to look harder at his subjects, and he focused more heavily on colour and light, rather than on details. He built up numerous layers of paint on his canvases and used highly visible strokes of paint to create a sense of shape and form, to add accents and to add dimensionality to the water lilies and lily pads. This is a radical approach to painting, further distancing his painting techniques from those of traditional French academic painting. In Water Lilies (Figure 2.3), the lack of a horizon line, lack of shoreline and use of loose brushstrokes give the painting an abstract composition. There is also a lack of a focal point – this encourages the viewer to look all around the painting – the indications that the viewer is looking at the pond from above are the reflections of clouds on the surface of the water, the presence of the water lilies and the weeping willow leaves that droop from the top of the painting. As Monet’s cataracts advanced, his ability to distinguish colours became affected. He painted with evident difficulty, using a palette featuring more reds and yellows, leading to more abstract compositions. In The Japanese Bridge (Figure 2.4), the bridge with wisteria can be made out from its shadows rendered using blues and reds, while the water lilies can barely be deciphered, with only quick brushstrokes to indicate their presence on the surface of the water.

Figure 2.3: Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1916-9, oil on canvas, 150 x 197 cm. Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris.

Figure 2.4: Claude Monet, The Japanese Bridge, c. 1920-2, oil on canvas, 89.5 x 116.3 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The First World War had a profound impact on Monet. Too old to fight, he remained alone at his home in Giverny with his stepdaughter looking after him (Seventh Art Productions, 2016) while many of the local people fled (Dumas, 2015). He continued painting his water lilies and could even hear the noise of gunfire taking place 50 kilometres away (ibid.). He felt guilty that his fellow compatriots were being killed or seriously injured while fighting in the battlefields, so he decided that painting would become, in his words, “my duty as a patriotic Frenchman” (Seventh Art Productions, 2016). “…if those savages must kill me, it will be in the middle of my canvases, in front of all my life’s work”, he added (Dumas, 2015). It was during this time period that he decided to begin working on large decorative panels depicting views around the water lily pond that he called Grandes Décorations [Great Decorations] (Seventh Art Productions, 2016) and were to be displayed in a grand circular room (Sagner-Düchting, 1994, p. 66). By tirelessly painting his water lily pond, he felt that he was doing as much as he could to help his homeland with the war effort.

Immediately after the end of the war, he wished to give work he produced during the war to the French State as a war memorial. He contacted Clemenceau, wanting to give away two large water lily paintings (Temkin and Lawrence, 2009, p. 7).

Clemenceau then encouraged him create more panels, and Monet in the end created 22 panels that made up eight different artworks that were to be displayed in two oval-shaped rooms in the Orangerie (ibid.). Monet continued working on these panels until his death – he was a perfectionist and continued working on them along with many other paintings (Seventh Art Productions, 2016). It was only in the months after his death that the Grandes Décorations were moved from Giverny and displayed in the rooms in the Orangerie (ibid.). The tranquillity of the paintings with the calm waters was the antithesis of the battlefields. The panels in the Orangerie were Monet’s personal response to the horrors of war – there is a sense of sadness in them – the weeping willows suggest mourning, while the water lilies suggest hope.

at the Musée de l’Orangerie.

Figure 2.6: View of the second room of Grandes Décorations at the Musée de l’Orangerie.

In the years after Monet’s death, the Water Lilies panels in the Orangerie were ignored and neglected. Water leaked from the skylights and onto the panels, and during the Second World War, shrapnel from artillery fire pierced into the paintings (Temkin and Lawrence, 2009, p 17). Following the war at one point, an exhibition was hung up directly in front of Monet’s panels (ibid.) Appreciation for his work would not happen again until the 1950s, when American Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko rediscovered the Water Lilies series (Sagner-Düchting, 1994, p. 96; Francblin, 2018) They were intrigued by the emotion and energy of Monet’s painting techniques of his later work (Francblin, 2018), believing that emotion could be conveyed through the creation of an abstract work.

When compared with the late Water Lilies paintings, Pollock’s drip paintings recall Monet’s energetic brushstrokes, while Rothko’s paintings with three stripes recall the strong colour contrasts and vibrations (ibid.). The paintings of the Water Lilies series can therefore be seen as seminal artworks in the development of abstract painting through Monet’s increasingly energetic painting techniques and use of colour.

As for the gardens at Giverny, they were passed down to his son Michel, but the gardens fell into neglect (Sagner-Düchting, 1994, p. 11). In 1966, he passed the

Figure 2.7: Jackson Pollock, One: Number 31, 1950, 1950, oil and enamel paint on canvas, 269.5 x 530.8 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Figure 2.8: Mark Rothko, No. 36 (Black Stripe), 1958, oil on canvas, 157.1 x 170.1 cm. Private collection.

ownership of his father’s estate onto the Academie des Beaux-Arts (ibid.). As Monet’s work was regaining popularity, there was growing interest in restoring his garden. With the help of American donors in the late 1970s, Monet’s house and gardens (including the water lily pond) were painstakingly restored and were opened to the public in 1980 after decades of deterioration (Lichfield, 2014). Monet’s estate remains an exceptionally popular tourist attraction, attracting 750,000 visitors in 2023 (Cheshire and da Silva, 2024).

Monet wanted his viewers to enjoy the power of nature as much as he himself did, and he wanted them to turn to look at nature in order to take a break from their busy working lives in cities (Temkin and Lawrence, 2009, p 45). In a world that is becoming ever more commercialised and reliant on technology, audiences of today feel connected to Monet’s Water Lily paintings, because they see them as a celebration of the beauty of nature When I paid a visit to the Grandes Décorations in the Orangerie, I felt that I was taking part in an interactive artwork, due to the need to walk around the two rooms to study the panels in order to take in the beauty of his water lily pond. Plenty of visitors around me came to the museum dressed formally to have photographs taken beside the panels. The popularity of the Water Lilies series with the general public is undeniable – they have become part of mass culture, with images of them appearing on items such as clothing, tote bags and calendars. Monet would be very pleased as not only has he succeeded in his goals, but his oeuvre also continues to inspire future generations of artists over a century after the creation his water lily pond. Having seen the Grandes Décorations in person before exploring the water lily pond, I was taken by surprise at how vastly different the water lilies in real life looked like compared to what I saw at the Orangerie – I could only imagine what Monet would have seen and observed while he was painting them.

In the art market today, paintings from the Water Lilies series are highly sought after by private collectors. For example, one painting from the series sold for $65.5 million at Sotheby’s in November 2024 after 17 minutes of bidding (Kazakina, 2024, Sotheby’s, 2024). This reaffirms Monet’s importance not only as an Impressionist painter of nature and gardens, but also as one of the most successful artists of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Chapter 3: Pierre Bonnard and his garden at Le Bosquet

Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) was a Post-Impressionist painter who was part of the Nabis (Hebrew for ‘prophets’) group of artists in the late 19th century, which included Paul Sérusier, Maurice Denis, Ker-Xavier Roussel and Édouard Vuillard (Mann and Thomson, 1994, p. 8). They were influenced by the unconventional use of colour, simplification of form and symbolism in the paintings of Paul Gauguin that he produced in Pont-Aven in Brittany (Aurrichio, 2004) The Nabis used the influence of Gauguin to explore the use of expressive colour and looseness of form through their decorative artworks (ibid.). Perhaps the most important theory behind the painting of the Nabis was the theory of Denis that “a picture… is basically a flat surface covered with paints put together in a certain order” (Whitfield and Elderfield, 1998, p. 10)

This idea led to the creation of more abstract compositions where changes of colour were an indication of the presence of different objects Bonnard, like Monet and the Impressionists before him, had a strong fascination with Japanese woodblock prints (Mann and Thomson, 1994, p. 9). The influence of Japanese prints and the theory of Denis can be seen in the flat compositions of the paintings Bonnard produced throughout the 20th century.

Figure 3.1: Paul Sérusier, The Talisman, 1888, oil on canvas, 27 x 21.5 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Bonnard was a private individual, preferring to live in the countryside and painting intimitist scenes featuring subjects that were familiar – rooms inside his home, his wife Marthe, his garden, the surroundings of his home and his pets (Whitfield and Elderfield, 1998, pp. 8-9). In his childhood, he spent holidays at his family’s estate at Le Grand-Lemps in the Isère department near the Alps (ibid. p. 10) where he particularly enjoyed being in the garden (ibid. p. 12). His appreciation of gardens at a young age would continue throughout his life as an artist, and he would create gardens at his homes later on in his career.

Between 1912 and 1938, Bonnard owned a house in Vernonnet in Normandy where he grew a wild garden, not far from Monet’s home in Giverny (ibid. pp. 259-62). It was during a long stay in Saint-Tropez in 1909 to visit Henri Manguin that Bonnard developed a greater fascination of colour (Mann and Thomson, 1994, p. 11). His interest in the light of the South led him to continue making trips to the French Riviera in the subsequent years (ibid.). The strong sunlight of Southern France compared with the light in Normandy and Northern France led to him taking a bolder approach in the use of colour, due to the more complex light and shadow contrasts that the sunlight provided In addition to the light of the South, Bonnard was also inspired by the works of the Fauvists such as Manguin and Henri Matisse, who were interested in depicting subjects using intense, pure colour, focusing more on colour rather than the forms of their subject matter (ibid.) Compared with Blue Balcony (Figure 3.2), a painting of Bonnard’s garden in Normandy, The Garden (Figure 3.3), painted at his garden in Southern France features much more energised colour contrasts and a palette featuring more intense, vibrant colours. The colour contrasts, along with the overall flatness in the rendering of the plants and foliage in The Garden emphasise the importance of the Nabi theories on his work and his interest in the possibilities of experimentation allowed by the light of the South

Figure 3.2: Pierre Bonnard, Blue Balcony, c. 1910, oil on canvas, 52.5 x 76 cm. The Courtauld Gallery, London.

Figure 3.3: Pierre Bonnard, The Garden, 1936, oil on canvas, 127 x 100 cm. Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris.

Drawn to the environment of Southern France, he purchased his house Le Bosquet in 1926 in Le Cannet, a town situated just north of Cannes (Gale, 2019, p. 16). The house overlooked the bay of Cannes and had wonderful views of the nearby Esterel Mountains He hoped that the air of Southern France would also be beneficial to his wife Marthe, who was suffering more and more from illness (Whitfield and Elderfield, 1998, p. 26). The house was rather modest, as it had small rooms (Mann and Thomson, 1994, p. 16). Upon moving in, he renovated the house, installing a bathroom (ibid.) and created his garden, where he grew orange trees and an almond tree (ibid. p. 108), as well as mimosa trees (Rose, 1997, p. 8). He was interested in how plants can grow in unexpected ways (Whitfield and Elderfield, 1998, p. 14). In this garden, Bonnard allowed plants to grow on their own, much like in the one in Vernonnet (ibid. p. 204; Seventh Art Productions, 2016). By being far away from Paris where the rise of Cubism and Surrealism took place (Gale, 2019, p. 10), he could continue exploring his fascination of colour and nature, with the setting of his garden in the French Riviera providing him with the ideal environment for reverie and for experimenting with the rendering of light and colour.

Bonnard’s technique of creating work was unusual. He worked slowly and meticulously, working on several paintings at the same time (Amory, 2010). He preferred to paint on unstretched canvases pinned to his studio wall, as he found the rectangular form of frames to be obstructive to his development of composition (Mann and Thomson, 1994, p. 38). Unlike the Impressionists who painted en plein air, he preferred to paint from memory, using rapidly-executed pencil sketches to assist him in his painting process (Whitfield and Elderfield, 1998, p. 9). Every morning, he would go for a walk in the areas near his house, making quick sketches of scenes that attract his attention and noting the weather, the light and colour at the time, before returning to his studio (ibid ). He stated that “before I start painting I reflect, I dream” (ibid.). By working from memory, he could decide which elements were not important for inclusion in a painting, and what should be included. Since he did not paint directly in front of his subjects, he was not restricted by what he saw directly in front of him, allowing him to explore colour more freely.

He sought to capture what he considered beautiful and his experience of what inspired him in the first place. Regarding his painting process, he said (Mann and

Thomson, 1994, p. 34), “It is a matter of remembering what has moved me and making a note of it as quickly as possible, if one just has a colour to start out from then one builds the whole painting around it. Colour has just as strong a logic as form. It is a matter of never giving up until one has managed to recreate the first impression.” The importance of colour harmonies to Bonnard is shown in The Little Window (View from the Painter’s Bedroom) (Figure 3.5), where he has restrained himself from using too much intense yellow in the depiction of the mimosas, balancing it using cooler blues around the painting. He would frequently rework his paintings (Whitfield and Elderfield, 1998, p. 53), as he would constantly see new things. In The Little Window, it can be seen that on the painting, the composition and the angle that Bonnard was viewing his garden from are slightly different to those depicted in the original drawing (Figure 3.4). This confirms the importance of composition to him, and the building up of uneven layers of paint shows the challenge of trying to recreate with colour what captivated him about the view from his bedroom window in the first place.

Left: Figure 3.4: Pierre Bonnard, 17.5 x 13 cm. Private collection.

Right: Figure 3.5: Pierre Bonnard, Bedroom), 1946, oil on canvas,

With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Bonnard would spend more time at home and became more and more withdrawn from the outside world. The war years were particularly difficult for him, as his friend Vuillard died in 1940, followed by his wife Marthe two years later and subsequently, the deaths of two friends who were part the Nabis, Denis and Roussel (Mann and Thomson, 1994, p. 22). Alone at Le Bosquet, he would turn to nature to feel happier and more relaxed (Gale, 2019, p. 44) – the surrounding landscapes as well as his garden provided the perfect opportunities to do so While he may be seen as a painter of happiness (Mann and Thomson, 1994, p. 27), there is a sadness in his later paintings of his garden, particularly in those produced after the death of his wife, as he was dealing with grief. The loose form and colour vibrations caused by the strong colour contrasts and expressive, dappled brushstrokes in The Artist’s Garden at Le Cannet (Figure 3.7) create a sense of unease

Figure 3.6: Pierre Bonnard, The Artist’s Garden at Le Cannet, 1943-5, oil on canvas, 63 x 55 cm. Private collection.

Pablo Picasso, one of Bonnard’s contemporaries, was not fond of Bonnard’s works, describing Bonnard’s painting methods as “a pot-pourri of indecision” (Gale, 2019, p. 204). “Painting isn’t a question of sensibility; it’s a matter of seizing the power, taking over from nature, not expecting her to supply you with information and good advice”, he added (ibid.). Picasso was at this time one of the most important avantgarde artists, and he thought that the style of the work of Bonnard was outdated and not radical enough. He failed to see that the reason why Bonnard reworked his paintings was because he wanted to achieve the colour harmonies and atmosphere that he desired. His paintings of his garden were not a direct response to its beauty, but rather they were his response to what caught his attention in a scene in the first place.

Matisse, a close friend of Bonnard championed his work, describing him as “one of the best painters” (ibid.). He praised Bonnard’s rendering of colour and believed that his work lied between Impressionism and Fauvism (ibid.) Since Bonnard’s journey towards abstraction was slower compared to artists such as Monet or the Cubists, the importance of his work to the development of modernism can seem undervalued in timeline of art history

Bonnard believed that his artwork would inspire future artists. He wrote, “I should like to present myself to the young painters of the year 2000 with the wings of a butterfly” (Whitfield and Elderfield, 1998, p. 46). He has indeed inspired contemporary artists, such as Scottish painter Peter Doig (born 1959), for whom memory forms part of his artistic practice (Als et al., 2013, p. 14). Doig recognises Bonnard’s ability to produce paintings from memory as an accomplishment (Pierre Bonnard: The Work of Art: Suspending Time, 2006, p. 273): “Somehow he is painting the space that is behind the eyes. It’s as if you were lying in bed trying hard to remember what something looked like. And Bonnard managed to paint that strange state.” It is clear that Bonnard has inspired artists working in the 21st century. His ability to create dream-like compositions through his unique combination of using his memory and use of colour harmonies is an unusual approach to painting that deserves to receive greater recognition.

Conclusion

The intention of this dissertation was to explore the importance of woods and gardens to avant-garde French artists of the 19th and 20th centuries in breaking away from academic traditions. Through my research for this dissertation, I developed a greater understanding of how woods and gardens helped to fundamentally change the course of the history of art

Manet’s painting Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe can be seen as an important milestone in the development of modern art. By drawing from classical sources to depict a modern scene in a wooded area, it broke away from strict academic traditions and drew controversy. Through his notoriety, he inspired younger artists to depict scenes of modern life and to reject traditional methods of painting.

Monet’s vast water lily garden served not only as a subject matter for painting, but it was also a celebration of new developments in horticulture. The importance of colour in his painting would also inform the design of his water lily garden, and for him, painting and gardening came to be of equal value and importance. By working increasingly energetically and loosely in his later years, he paved the way for the development of abstract art in the 20th century.

For Bonnard, his garden in Southern France was a place for him to dream and gain inspiration. By not being directly influenced by subsequent radical art movements of the 20th century in Paris, his garden also became a place that opened up possibilities to explore colour. He was not drawn to grand gardens, preferring to let nature grow on its own. The intense sunlight of the French Riviera along with his unique method of painting from memory allowed him to experiment with colour harmonies.

The importance of the works of these French artists in the history of art cannot be denied – woods and gardens helped not only to inspire artists, but they also played an important role in opening opportunities for exploring the possibilities of painting, and they continue to inspire artists today

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Joseph Xu

JOSEPH XU

A Critical Analysis of French Landscape

Paintings Featuring Woods and Gardens

Fine Art BA Hons Dissertation

Abstract