Rouen, France – day 2

Today Bette got to go to Monet’s house and gardens in Giverny. The guide gave another history of the area, and then talked about painting. There were very strict rules that painters in France had to follow. However in the mid 19th century the landscape in paintings became the focus and not just the background. Around 1850, many artists broke with the current academy and in Fontainebleau started the Barbizon school of painting. Until this time artists only painted in studios, but now they began to paint outside, to take advantage of the change in light. To paint this way you had to paint quickly to catch the light in a precise moment, and therefore the brushstrokes were not fine as they were in earlier times. This gave an “impression” of the scene and so Impressionism was born.

Monet’s painting presented in 1872, Impression of the Rising Sun, was not well received, but was the first of this type of painting to be displayed in Paris.

Monet was born in Paris in 1840, spent his childhood on Le Havre at the mouth of the Seine and lived for some time in London. In 1890 he bought the house in Giverny and lived there with his 2nd wife and their combined family of 8 children. He slowly added to the property and now it encompasses about 15 acres. The house is in great condition.

The garden were in full bloom and quite lovely.

In the afternoon Bob and I did an excursion to Chateau Gaillard and the village of Lyons la Foret. On the bus ride we again heard about the Vikings and the settlement of that area.

The Chateau is supposedly built by Richard the Lionhearted and he may have been the architect. It was built over a period of just 15 months. It stands on a cliff high above the Seine River. We got to see it from an overlook and then we walked to the ruins. You could not enter the chateau.

We next went to the small town. We saw their covered market area which was from the 1500s, the house where Ravel lived when he wrote Bolero. This week that we were in France, the country was celebrating VE Day, May 8 and there was a war memorial decorated with flowers.