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Tom Marlow: Monet did this as a monument to a young man who died in the First World War. There’s such energy here: these aren’t the brush strokes of a decrepit old man there’s a real energy and vitality in them. When you get close up to these paintings you’re drawn into them. They are so multi-layered as well you know I’m not sure sometimes whether I’m looking at a painting of a tree or of a plant or whether I’m looking at their reflection in the surface of the water and of course I’m looking at both.
It’s as if we’re on an island in the middle of a giant lake surrounded by water and we can’t see the far shore. In some ways I think the ambition in these paintings is comparable to the ambition of creating the garden itself, because Monet has to nurture and tend and re-work these from sketches, but they’re in his studio and he’s painting them and over-painting them, and they take years to create.
Diarmuid: How important was his work to other artists?
Tim Marlow: Very important. I think that the origins of large scale abstraction in the 20th century with artists like Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock can be traced back to Monet. So really the seeds of the modern art movement were sown in Monet’s garden.
If you would like to find out more about Claude Monet or Barbara Hepworth here are a few suggestions:
Books you can read
"Barbara Hepworth", Penelope Curtis, Tate Gallery Publishing, ISBN 1854372254
"Art and the Garden", Anne de Charmant, Academy Editions, ISBN 0471977454
"Monet", Paul Hayes, Harry N.Abrams, ISBN 0810926105
"The Garden as Art", Mara Miller, State Univ. of New York Press, ISBN 0791413780
"Monet’s Passion: Ideas, Inspiration and Insights from the Painters Gardens", Elizabeth Murray, Pomegranate Artbooks, ISBN 087654443
Links You Can Surf
For more information on the St.Ives Tate Gallery
For more information on Monet’s garden in Giverny
For more information on Claude Monet’s House and Gardens
Also on this site : you can join Jenny Agutter as she finds out why artists have been attracted to Cornwall and Matthew Collings as he looks at the modern interpretation of self-portrait.
If you think you might be interested in studying more about these subjects, find out what the Open University has to offer.
The BBC and the Open University are not responsible for the content of external websites
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