OIL PAINTING: Water-Lily Pond, Symphony in Rose, 1900
Monet painted his Giverny water landscapes for 27 years; they reflected peace and contemplation. When Monet died in 1926, the foremost French painter, these landscapes were installed in two oval rooms in the Orangerie of the Tuileries Gardens. Like his mature work, they were of a kind of metaphysical naturalism. Monet's remarks to his friend Georges Clemenceau described this as not reducing the world to your measure; but to enlarge your knowledge of the world. You will then enlarge yourself and your self-knowledge. Like other creators of perfection - Cezanne, Beethoven - there is a tacit acknowledgement of a reality existing beyond appearances.