September/October 2001

The life of Claude Monet holds many lessons beyond the fact that you can, if you wish, grow orange nasturtiums in front of a pink house, and both will be improved by the association. There"s also something to be learned from the fact that when Monet packed up and moved his family from Paris to Giverny, he went because he was hard up and needed a cheaper place to live. Yet, in this new setting, chosen out of necessity, he went on to create both the art and the garden that made him famous. Sometimes life"s little disasters turn into blessings.

For Monet, the garden was not merely something he did so he could paint it later on: it was a personal passion, the fabric of his life. Vivian Russell tells us in her book Monet"s Garden: Through the Seasons at Giverny (Stewart Tabori & Chang) that Monet read all the gardening magazines and nursery catalogues of the period, attended flower shows, swapped plants and walked through Giverny three or four times a day (remind you of anybody you know?).¬Ý

His closest friends were all garden enthusiasts, including the painter Gustave Caillebotte, a man as well-heeled as the gents he painted in his famous "Paris Street: Rainy Day" at the Art Institute. The two men talked gardens, gave each other plants and corresponded frequently. What did they write about? Russell tells us there was "not a word about art" in their letters. They wrote about gardening.

I was astounded when I read that but understood perfectly, for Monet was a person like us, someone who found in gardening such joy (and hope and visions of glorious things to come) that he couldn"t stop talking about it.¬Ý

No wonder, then, that we invariably turn wistful when September rolls around and we are forced to acknowledge that the year"s gardening days will soon end, but not in September. Or October either. There"s a case to be made that autumn is the Midwest"s most glorious season and that the autumn garden can be the pinnacle of the year"s achievement. Two gardens featured in this issue would argue the point.

So let us not despair. Winter will come and with it, some well-deserved rest. But for now, it"s autumn. A time to be in the garden. A time for joy.