Giverny

Oct. 28th Tuesday — Mardi

Up with the coffee from Julian around the corner we had a scheduled day out to Giverny and the house and garden of one Claude Monet.  Scoundrel, genius, polyamorous lover of light and nature and whichever women showed up at the house.  His oldest son married his step-sister, Mm-kay?

The morning began with an effort at writing blog posts and working on trying to actually publish it for someone to see.  That has proved difficult so basically at this point we are putting together a series of posts — writing and pictures — which will likely all be dumped at once at some future moment.

We took the Metro out to a meeting point for 2 pm.  (1400 around here as they use the 24 hour clock, because, well, they’re French and voila) The tour group gathered next to the Notre-Dame de Compassion, which is not THE Notre-Dame but another, and much smaller, but no less beautiful little church set amidst traffic and buildings and the busy-ness of the city, somewhere near the Seine.  Asked to wait for everyone else to arrive, we ventured into the church and lit a candle for a Catholic friend of mine who really appreciates that sort of thing. We found out at some point in our tours that if the Virgin Mary is depicted she is always wearing blue, so I don’t know who the green lady in the stained glass is.  The statuary, the stone work…I mean even in one of these little out of the way spots you are given pause to reflect, admire and feel a reverence.

Not Mary, but still impressive. As for the sculpture, pretty sure that's Jesus waiting for Ascension.

We were all directed onto a waiting bus — not my personal jam, basically due to junior high school trauma which always began by boarding a bus in the morning. And had comfortable seats and no one punched you in the arm. Or called you four eyes.   

Every seat was filled, the last two arranged for a pair of women from England who pleaded autism as a means of needing to sit together, and the tour guide Thelma took charge.  The bus trip was a lovely hour and a half traveling out of the city and along some wooded highways and into and through a couple of smaller towns until we parked at Giverny.  Along the way, Thelma — an African-François woman of 40 or so — gave us a personal history of having been born in Zimbabwe and then being lured to Paris for the work of a tour guide (“I could talk for 20 hours about a grape!”) for which she was eminently qualified.  As we gazed out of the windows at the changing colors and increasing number of trees, she regaled us with the surprisingly long and distinguished career of Claude Monet, whom she kept referring as “my uncle” which eventually became confusing since Monet’s own lineage, marriage, relationships and kin provided enough familial connections as to need a chart.  Nonetheless, we got the gist and suffice it to say, that he started out with a modicum of family support (a rich aunt) and an arrogant -- if prescient -- belief in his own talent and intent, upsetting the art world through a move away from wealthy portraiture and realism to what became ‘impressionism’ — a word given to his work as a critique but which he and his crew took on as a positive.  He was, between artist jaunts with his buddy Renoir and hanging with Manet and others, involved with a comely artist’s model named Camille who bore him two sons out of wedlock and also allowed him to take up with Blanche who joined the group at some point with six children of her own.  His green grocer pére didn’t approve but his rich aunt took pity.

Giverny digs. The paintings are knock offs painted by Monet's students.

I feel like I've seen this look in Great Kitchens Monthly.

Though Blanche died of TB, Monet’s career continued to flourish and eventually he was making beaucoup francs and discovered the village of Giverny and the house which he expanded and the land which he eventually purchased and turned into the extravagant gardens and ponds and Japanese bridges where he pretty much just hung out in and painted until he died at 86.  He was able, thus to house the large brood and keep everyone in relatively high cotton, or water lillies and sages and nasturtiums etc as it were.

The boats in the water are called canoodling canoes. Sounds better in French.

The tour, enjoined by hundreds of others — mostly in bus tour groups like ours, but also available to folks arriving by car — wends through the house to see it as it might have been (thanks to the largess of one Walter Van De Kemp who paid for the restoration and was rewarded by being buried just below Monet in the nearby cemetery) and then out onto the gardens just outside the house.  The gardens are acres of flowers and the fabled pond, accessible through a tunnel he had dug.  The pond is fed and supported by a diverted flowing stream he was able to have dug because he was buddies with the Prime Minister of France, Georges Clemenceau.   This upset the locals who thought him a bit power mad (he was the guy who had the audacity to paint the gray shutters bright green after all) but it seems Monet was the Big Daddy of town and a national treasure so not a lot could be done about his whims.

Everybody there except Mom.

The big takeaway for Monet is that he was really into Japanese art and lifestyle.  His home is filled with it — as well as faithful copies of some of his works — and the ponds, bridges, flora and design are all based on Japanese design.  He was also determined to change the look of acceptable French art and, at a celebrated art show alongside Rodin, did so.  He was 53 when he broke big on the nineteenth century version of France Has Got Talent.

Pretty as a picture.

After the house and gardens, we stopped in a nearby cafe for coffee and dessert and discovered that if you order an “extra shot” from the French server, she may just hear “chocolate” and include two hot chocolates with the order of two cappuccinos.  The hazards of trying to speak French.

We stopped by the grave of the great artist and wandered through the cemetery and then made our way to the bus where we had to sit separetly due to the fact that if you wait too long, someone is going to grab your seat — again, buses, not my thing — though we were not the last as, of course, everyone had to wait for the two jovial autistic British ladies to board and, in a friendly, but practiced, passive-aggressive manner, get seated together.  “Thank you SO much, thank you yes, Thank you!”  to the glum relocatees.

The long ride back was dark and quiet, though Thelma came on at the last to list out a long suggestion as to what to do someday that wasn’t this one.  She reeled off a few restaurants with inexpensive but excellent meals and champagnes and all I remember is Union Square and ribeye.   Might try it.

We meandered from the drop off point and ended up at a somewhat boisterous and moderately expensive bistro where we had a few glasses of wine and a cheese board.  A coterie of red faced Frenchmen sat at the bar while slurping champagne and deciding the truth of whatever they needed to affirm.  I have noticed a similar crew in most of the bistrots, where you have several ne’er do well types enjoying drinks while one of their number is continuously hustling drinks and orders, ending up with the backslappers in between trips through the place.  The bill for this was more than our fabulous meal from the night before, so as we headed for the Metro home wishing we’d asked Thelma for directions when we got off the bus.  But it’s all Paris and thus, all good.

Once back to the hood, we climbed the stairs, imbibed some American news — not a healthy pursuit these days! — and folded up our cares and woe for today.