On Gardens, Nature and Healing

“At one point I was visited by the temptation to use the theme of nymphéas [water lilies] for a decoration. Carried the length of the walls, enveloping the entire interior with its unity, it would attain the illusion of a whole without end, of a watery surface without horizon and without banks; nerves overstrained by work would be relaxed there, following the restful example of the still waters, and to whomsoever lived there, it would offer an asylum of peaceful meditation at the center of a flowering aquarium.”

– Claude Monet [1]

In his Water Lilies, Monet sought consolation from the loss of his second wife, Alice, and his eldest son, Jean.

Days and hours with his pond, surrendering to the ever changes of life.

“Do you really think that the excitement and ecstasy with which I express and fulfill my passion for nature simply leads to a fairyland?… People who hold forth on my painting conclude that I have arrived at the ultimate degree of abstraction and imagination that relates to reality. I should much prefer to have them acknowledge what is given, the total self-surrender. I applied paint to these canvases the same way that monks of old illuminated their books of hours; these owe everything to the collaboration of solitude and passion, to an earnest, exclusive attention bordering on hypnosis… I set my easel in front of this bit of water that adds a pleasant freshness to my garden; in circumference it is less than 200 meters and its image evokes the idea of infinity for you; you ascertain in it, as in a microcosm, the existence of the elements and the instability of the universe that changes from minute to minute under our eyes. ”

– Claude Monet [1]

[1] "Monet: Water Lilies (including 99 illustrations)", by Charles F. Stuckey. Hardcover, Park Lane, 1991.