Claude Monet: An Invitation to Giverny in 1886...

As soon as he moved to Giverny in 1883, a place he had chosen for its exceptional light, Monet began tirelessly painting the surrounding landscapes when he wasn't traveling. He worked his way through the region on foot along the roads and the banks of the Seine, through meadows and fields of poppies. According to Daniel Wildenstein's catalogues raisonnés (1979 and 1996), the hills seen in the distance in Les Saules, Giverny are those of Port-Villez, further south on the hilly, wooded left bank of the Seine. Monet rarely featured trees as a mere pretext for enlivening his landscapes; he used trunks, branches, leaves and flowers to create a viewpoint between sky and earth as an integral part of the visual experience. He worked on this theme in a series shortly afterward,…