Geneviève Aitken, Marianne DelafondLa collection d'estampes japonaises de Claude Monet à Giverny

Geneviève Aitken and Marianne Delafond have compiled an accurate catalogue of the exceptional collection of Japanese prints assembled by Claude Monet and preserved at Giverny. Here is a new, exhaustive and enriched edition of this work which is a precious testimony to the artist’s taste and passion for the ukiyo-e style, these “images of a floating world” which seem to be the perfect definition of Impressionism and the final paintings of the Water Lilies…

Monet’s passion for Japan led him to unexpectedly introduce various Japanese touches into the completely original world he had created at Giverny. His borrowings from Japanese garden art are evident in the design of the pond, which he transformed into a spectacular “water garden” (vegetation elements, water lily flowers, etc.). And the footbridge that spans this vast expanse of water in bloom is reminiscent of the Japanese bridges so common in Japanese prints: it illustrates how much the painter shared the vision of the great masters of ukiyo-e and how familiar he was with their “floating world”.
Monet looked at these Japanese prints intensely – as long as the female faces engraved by Utamaro – and he loved them to the point of building up an exceptional collection, presented on the walls of his house in Giverny: the master of Giverny had chosen to live in the midst of these extraordinary compositions by Hokusai, Hirohige, Utamaro… Moving from the garden to his home, Monet was “living in Japan” in Normandy! Although the painter of Impression, Rising Sun never came to discover the country of the Rising Sun, he welcomed the Japanese, buyers and collectors, who visited him and became his friends. This was followed by exchanges of letters and shipments of prints intended to further enlarge the collection lovingly gathered and preserved in Giverny for the pleasure of visitors.