IMPRESSIONIST GARDENS: National Galleries of Scotland

摘要

The idea of the Garden as Art, Art as the Garden came to the fore with the Impressionists. Their view is what most people continue to understand by the notion that a garden can be Art, and is best epitomised by Monet's three gardens, but particularlyGiverny. Monet was not, however, alone in being attracted to the twin arts of gardening and painting, as the exhibition 'Impressionist Gardens' at the National Galleries of Scotland showed. The garden was one of the most frequently recurring themes of Impressionism and one of the most important. Gardens had played their part in previous art movements, but with Impressionism, gardens became a subject in their own right rather than just a convenient backdrop. Gardens became the inspiration for art, and for Monet his garden at Giverny became art; indeed he called it his 'most beautiful work of art' and even claimed that 'I perhaps owe it to flowers that I have become a painter.'