In Monet’s Garden

Claude Monet immortalised his love for his garden in hundreds of paintings: we all know his world-famous waterlilies. The impressionist painter planted the garden himself and did so with a painter’s eye. He took inspiration from what he saw on his travels: from the colour blocks of the Dutch flower fields to the romantic sumptuousness of the Italian riviera of flowers. His beautiful garden was in bloom from spring until autumn. The water, the light and the many different colours provided inspiration for a lifetime’s worth of paintings. His garden became his life and a mirror of his soul.

‘In Monet’s Garden’ is Vermeire’s tribute to the founder of impressionism. She lets Monet guide the reader around his garden and into his life and touches on a few crucial issues: his love of nature and of painting, the death of his beloved Camille and the eye disease that affected his eyesight. In much of Vermeire’s work plants, flowers, trees and animals occupy an important place, so she is the perfect illustrator to capture Monet’s explosions of colour in a picture book.