One of the most celebrated single settings for paintings in art history is Monet’s garden in Giverny. Here, Monet himself worked for more than 20 years to create his amazing Water Lily paintings, among other. Other artists joined in as well, with the likes or Renoir dropping by to paint e.g. Girl with a Watering Can in the famous garden.
However, as famous as Claude Monet paintings garden in Giverny is, it may still come as a surprise to most that it has actually copied down to the latest detail on a different continent, Japan. The Japanese has build Garden of Monet Marmottan in the village of Katagawa. This is a complete reproduction of the original Monet garden, complete with pathways, flowers, plants, ponds and of course the Japanese bridge. In order to ensure the highest possible level of authenticity, the work was thus supported by Mr Gérald Van Der Kemp, the first curator of the Monet Foundation in Giverny. Through these efforts, a complete replica garden can now be visited in Japan.
One might not think that there is such interest in a French Impressionist who lived a century ago in today’s Japan. That would be an obvious and easy conclusion, and as such, also quite wrong. The Garden of Monet in Japan was in fact visited by more than 200.000 people in its first year alone. That is a massive interest in a recreated French garden, and its stems from the kinship the Japanese feel for Monet. He was himself inspired by Japanese painting and art, and had numerous Japanese prints in his house in Giverny. This inspiration shines through in his art, in its simplicity of subject and his choice of angles, and this in turn allows the Japanese to recognize something of their own in the art of Monet. The inspiration went beyond the pure artistc, however, as is attested by the presence of the Japanese bridge in Monet’s garden. The garden in Katagawa has one of these too!
