A Spy in Monet’s Garden
Review by Dr. Jerry Flack
Ella in the Garden of Giverny presents a delightful story of a young American girl in the early 20th century who is befriended by the creator of Impressionism, Claude Monet. Daniel Fehr smartly integrates Ella’s first-person narrative with an extended dialogue using the voices of Ella and of Monet, who becomes her mentor.
Readers quickly learn that Ella’s father is an American artist who moves his family to Paris and later to the small village of Giverny. He believes all artists should paint in France and especially near his greatest artistic idol, Claude Monet.
Ella’s father believes in the emerging popularity of landscape art well over a century past. He becomes a plein air artist, one who paints outdoors. He thinks that true artists should leave the confines of studios that were de rigueur at the time.
Ella learns that the great artist Monet is annoyed by uninvited spectators who interrupt his concentration. She hides in the lush vegetation surrounding Monet’s garden pond and secretly works on her sketches of Monet painting water lilies. Soon, the elderly master discovers Ella and asks to see her sketchbook with her portrait of him at work. In turn, he shares his own fledgling years as an artist and the criticism he received for drawing nonstop.
The young Monet moved to Paris, but he quickly tired of drawing and painting live models in studios. He tells Ella how he learned to become a plein air artist. He loved painting the sea and the sky. Clouds and the sun continually shifted his impressions of nature.
Paris gallery patrons and art critics did not like Monet’s “new” art that would soon be called Impressionism. They refused to purchase his paintings. Without sales, Monet could not support his large family. Fortunately, a Parisian gallery owner believed in the astonishing beauty of Monet’s paintings. He shipped them to the United States where American art patrons fell in love with Monet’s innovative style of painting. Americans purchased his landscapes, not the least of which were images of haystacks (in all seasons), the favorite subject of Ella’s father.
Ella asks Monet why he appears to paint only water lilies. He explains that he does not paint only lilies. He paints waterscapes. He loves the way clouds and light are constantly shifting. Mostly, Monet encourages the young, fictional Ella to draw and paint as often as she can.
The charming story of the imagined meeting of young Ella and Claude Monet is handsomely illustrated by Monika Vaicenaviciene whose colorful paintings imitate the uses of pastel hues and artistic visions of the father of Impressionism.
The end matter of Ella in the Garden of Giverny is significant and serves as a welcome invitation for older readers to learn much more about Impressionism and Monet’s life. Claude Monet was one of the earliest and most famous painters to embrace and create paintings known today as Impressionism. Indeed, the very word Impressionism comes from the title of one of Monet’s painting titled Impression, Sunrise (1872). Monet was especially concerned with the fleeting moments of light, shade, and color and the incomparable impressions they made upon him. Monet and his followers mostly painted outdoors and with swift and broad brushstrokes in order to capture rapidly changing landscapes and seascapes. The broad brushstrokes often resulted in paintings that seemed slightly out of focus. While French art patrons and critics were severely critical of this new artistic genre, art patrons and gallery owners in New York and elsewhere in America loved this new way of perceiving nature. Impression paintings became highly coveted.
Fehr’s second essay, written in a time-line fashion, reveals Claude Monet’s life (1840-1926). A single year, 1893, especially stands out. It was the year that Monet built his water garden at Giverny, complete with its lily pond and Japanese bridges. In the fictional story, Monet tells Ella that his water garden is his studio.
In a two-page spread, copies of 14 of Monet’s most famous paintings are presented in chronological order from 1858 to 1915. The arrangement reveals to readers Monet’s development as an artist and particularly how he became the first of the Impressionists to achieve fame and success.
A final page directs readers to online resources about Monet’s village of Giverny and to museum sites that highlight Monet’s oeuvre.
Home and School Activities
Play Monet Bingo.
Gifted readers can find many biographies intended for all ages of readers about the great artist’s life. One excellent biography for younger readers is Ann Waldron’s Who Was Claude Monet? (Grosset & Dunlap, 2009). Much biographical information is available online as well. Monet lived a very full life of 86 years. There is no shortage of fascinating things about his long life to highlight. As readers research Monet’s life, encourage them to keep a list of names and words that were central to his eventful life. At a minimum, the list should contain 25 entries. Examples: Le Havre, Paris, Eugene Boudin, Algeria, Zouaves, Impressionism, Giverny, plein air, Orangerie, Camille, water lilies, Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Give young scholars the following directions. Use a ruler, marker, and blank sheet of paper to create a standard 25-square blank bingo sheet. Many templates can be found on the Internet. YouTube even has a short film with visual and audio directions for creating a bingo template. The result should be a grid of 25 blank squares. Print the name “M-O-N-E-T” in colorful letters above the top line of the grid. Randomly, fill each of the 25 boxes with one of the names or words generated while reading accounts of the artist’s life. (The center most square that is traditionally a “Free Space” can be eliminated, repeat Monet’s family name, or serve as a “wild card” for writers.) Cross the grid vertically, horizontally, or diagonally and write a “chapter” of a new biography that connects the five names and words selected. The result will be best if the writing is complemented with illustrations. Eager gifted students can use their Monet Bingo grid to write and illustrate multiple biographical sketches of the artist’s long and rich life.
Garden Catalog Contributor.
Claude Monet was very nearly as famous as a garden architect as he was as a great painter. He began work on his flower garden at his home in Giverny as early as 1883 and he was still expanding multiple features of it such as adding new and exotic flowers when he died in 1926. Monet’s garden includes such beautiful flowers as roses, dahlias, daffodils, tulips, irises, hydrangeas, and sunflowers. Ask readers to select a favorite flower that may be found in Monet’s garden today. Next, they can research the single floral choice online or in books about the artist’s multiple gardens. Is the selected flower a perennial or an annual? During which season of the year does it thrive? Does it grow blossoms of multiple colors? Young researchers can assume the posture of being copy writers and illustrators for a major garden and seed catalog. The result will be a full-page catalog entry about a flower, such as an oriental poppy, using both words and original illustrations.
In many ways, Monet’s gardens at Giverny became the artist’s blank canvas. He imported exotic plants from around the world. As his popularity and wealth allowed, he continually expanded such features as a water lily pond and green Japanese bridges. Gifted learners can use both print and digital resources to learn more about Monet’s garden. Like other famous Impressionist artists, Monet was passionate about pastel colors. His home at Giverny was pink and he loved to coordinate colors in his flower gardens. He had a special fondness for hues of blue and he disliked black flowers or plants.
A number of exceptionally fine children’s books further explore the creation of Monet’s gardens. Two special books that remain in print are Linnea in Monet’s Garden (R & S Books, 1985) written by Christina Bjork, and Laurence Anholt’s The Magical Garden of Claude Monet (Barron’s, 2003). Similar to Ella in the Garden of Giverny, both books are fictional and feature a young girl making a visit to Monet’s botanical masterpiece. Online tours of the famed garden also exist. Suggest to students that they use information from multiple resources to create a blueprint or aerial view a landscape architect might create to imitate or reveal Monet’s gardens as they exist today.
Claude Monet is considered to be the father of the style of painting known as Impressionism. Encourage gifted researchers to fully explore this now beloved school of art. What are the major characteristics and qualities most often associated with Impressionism? What are some of the limitations or difficulties that confront artists who use this style of painting? Who are some of Claude Monet’s closest friends who chose Impressionism as their artistic style? Older readers can search online for directions about how to create a painting that might be described as a work of Impressionism and attempt to create an original painting in this artistic style.
Fehr, Daniel. Ella in the Garden of Giverny: A Picture Book About Claude Monet. Illus. by Monika Vaicenaviciene. New York: Prestel, 2022.
