Clare A. P. Willsdon

A visual exploration of the Impressionists' love affair with the new thinking about garden design that swept 19th-century France. In the Gardens of Impressionism explores the Impressionists' fascination with gardens, parks, and flowers in the context of the contemporary craze for horticulture and the changing political and cultural landscape in France. It discusses the artists both as painters and as...

From Manet's earliest depictions of the Tuileries Gardens in Paris to Monet's late waterlilies painted at Giverny, the Impressionists' love affair with gardens has left an exhilarating legacy. As places of rest, relaxation, beauty and leisure, gardens were indeed the Impressionist subject par excellence, offering all the evanescent beauty of colour and light that these artists loved. But what meanings...