| Water lilies are the most beautiful and generous flowers: they all but disappear in the winter but around May the first lilly pads appear and by June the first flowers begin to show. Eventually a signififcant area of the pond is covered with thick green pads dotted with flowers and these continue through July and August. They provide shelter for fish and enable the heron to access the fish. They help the dragon flies and damsel flies lay their eggs in the water and help reduce evaporation - something that is very noticeable during this long hot summer. They are an important part of the pond ecosystem but they also transform the pond with their colour and movement in the wind. | |
It's little wonder that artists like Claude Monet have been inspired to paint water lilies floating on a reflective pond. In 1890 he bought a house at Giverny and in 1893 purchased a meadow near the property which contained a pond fed by the Ru River. He hired at least six gardeners who gradually shaped the meadow into a garden of willows, irises and water lilies specially imported from Japan. He painted the gardens around the house and then turned his attention to the water gardens, painting them repeatedly between 1897 until his death in 1926. In all, he produced more than 250 oil paintings of his lily ponds and admitted "These landscapes of water and reflections have become an obsession." Monet's water garden and one of his paintings are shown above.
I would not be surprised if the gardener who designed my garden incorporated Monet's paintings of his water garden into his a vision for his own water garden, and I am the fortunate person to see his vision realised over 40 years later. Making my film prompted me to ask, who is the greater creator? - the gardener who lays out and stimulates nature to enable plants and animals to recreate his living cultural artefact decades later, or the artist who in a few hours or days makes an artefact that will never live or change. Perhaps its not something that can be judged, both involve imagination and creativity and that is enough.
But I do know that I am grateful to the gardener who invested his time, money, effort and creativity in creating a water garden that I can experience, enjoy and appreciate everyday, which provides a natural environment in which many plants and animals flourish, and therefore makes a valuable contribution to the natural world.
I would not be surprised if the gardener who designed my garden incorporated Monet's paintings of his water garden into his a vision for his own water garden, and I am the fortunate person to see his vision realised over 40 years later. Making my film prompted me to ask, who is the greater creator? - the gardener who lays out and stimulates nature to enable plants and animals to recreate his living cultural artefact decades later, or the artist who in a few hours or days makes an artefact that will never live or change. Perhaps its not something that can be judged, both involve imagination and creativity and that is enough.
But I do know that I am grateful to the gardener who invested his time, money, effort and creativity in creating a water garden that I can experience, enjoy and appreciate everyday, which provides a natural environment in which many plants and animals flourish, and therefore makes a valuable contribution to the natural world.
I wondered how Monet would have painted my water garden and came across an app called Dreamscope that contained a Monet artist filter. Here is the digital painting that it thinks Monet might have created.
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