The French art critic Louis Vauxcelles described a day trip to Giverny in summer 1905, to visit the home of artist Claude Monet. The painter wore “a suit made of some tweedy material in a beige check, a blue pleated silk shirt, a hat of tawny suede, and high-cut shoes of reddish leather.” After lunch, the genial fop hastened his guest to the pond because “the water lilies close before five.
” Vauxcelles was drowsy with delight. “The leaves lie flat upon the surface of the water, and from among them blossom the yellow, blue, violet and pink corollas of that lovely water flower. .
.. Weeping willows and poplars abound, and on the banks of the stream he has planted hundreds of flowers—gladioluses, irises, rhododendrons and some rare species of lily.
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It all comes together to create a setting that is more pretty than grandiose, an exceedingly Oriental dream.” The effect was repeated in the studio, housing depictions of water lilies “at all hours of day: the pale lilac of early morning, the powdery bronze glow of midday, the violet shadows of twilight.” The artist ended the day by giving instructions to his gardener, out on the pond, “in a barge removing the dead vegetation from among the water lilies.
” The precious flowers, drifting, their movement almost imperceptible, over the liquid blue-green surfaces of the artist’s Water Lilies paintings, evoke a dreamy contentment, as if the world is in slow motion, or time is stilled altogether. Monet himself drew.