Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies (60 page)

2
    
Gil Blas
, February 23 and May 6, 1912.

3
    
Gil Blas
, September 7, 1909. For Clemenceau’s house and garden in Bernouville, see Gregor Dallas,
At the Heart of a Tiger: Clemenceau and His World, 1841–1929
(London: Macmillan, 1993), p. 442.

4
    Marc Elder,
À Giverny, chez Claude Monet
(Paris: Bernheim-Jeune, 1924; reprinted, Paris: Mille et une nuits, 2010), Kindle edition, loc. 658.

5
    Georges Clemenceau,
Lettres à une Amie, 1923–1929
, ed. Pierre Brive (Paris: Gallimard, 1970), p. 17.

6
    
Gil Blas
, August 31, 1911.

7
    The population is given as 250 in M. G. Quilbeuf,
La Loi sur l’assistance: ses conséquences financières pour les communes
(Rouen, 1906), p. 9.

8
    Quoted in Katherine M. Bourguignon, ed.,
Impressionist Giverny: A Colony of Artists, 1885–1915
(Giverny: Musée d’art Américain 2007), pp. 19 and 29.

9
    Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux,
Journal 1894–1927
, ed. Myriam Chimènes (Paris: Fayard, 2007), p. 308.

10
   Jean-Pierre Hoschedé tells the story of the wedding party on the train in
Claude Monet, ce mal connu: intimité familiale d’un demi-siècle à Giverny de 1883 à 1926
(Geneva: Pierre Cailler, 1960), vol. 1, p. 24.

11
   Hoschedé,
Claude Monet
, vol. 1, p. 52.

12
   
Je sais tout
, January 15, 1914.

13
   Daniel Wildenstein,
Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné
, 5 vols. (Lausanne-Paris: La Bibliothèque des Arts, 1974–91), vol. 1, 1840–1881, letter 50. All subsequent letters of Monet quoted in the text will be designated by the numbers given to them by Wildenstein, following the abbreviation WL. All translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own.

14
   WL 108. See also WL 117 (January 1878) for a similar threat.

15
   The legend of the potatoes is found in
L’Écho de Paris
, December 6, 1926. For the lack of food and paints, see WL 46, 51 and 52. For the story of the butcher, see René Gimpel,
Diary of an Art Dealer
, trans. John Rosenberg (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1966), pp. 72–3. For the baker and the laundress: Daniel Wildenstein,
Monet, or the Triumph of Impressionism
(Cologne and Paris: Taschen, 1996), pp. 130 and 150. For the draper: Ruth Butler,
Hidden in the Shadow of the Master: The Model-Wives of Cézanne, Monet, and Rodin
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 199. The figure of 20 francs is given by Monet’s dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, in
Le Bulletin de la Vie Artistique
, April 15, 1920.

16
   WL 148, 155.

17
   Paul Mantz,
Gazette des Beaux-Arts
, July 1865; and Gonzague Privat,
Place aux jeunes! Causeries critiques sur le Salon de 1865
(F. Cournol: Paris, 1865), p. 190.

18
   
Le Charivari
, April 25, 1874.

19
   Quoted in Wildenstein,
Monet, or the Triumph of Impressionism
, p. 216; and Georges Clemenceau,
Claude Monet: Les Nymphéas
(Paris: Plon, 1928), p. 70.

20
   Gustave Geffroy,
Claude Monet: sa vie, son temps, son oeuvre
(Paris: G. Crès, 1922), p. 312.

21
   
La Vie Moderne
, June 12, 1880.

22
   Lilla Cabot Perry, “Reminiscences of Claude Monet,”
American Magazine of Art
, March 1927.

23
   
Gazette des Beaux-arts
, April 1, 1883.

24
   Paul Hayes Tucker has pointed out that
Impression, Sunrise
was “not the actual source for the term ‘Impressionists’ that was first applied to the group” by Louis Leroy in his much-quoted review in
Le Charivari
, April 25, 1874. Leroy instead used the term, Tucker argues, in the context of his discussion of Monet’s
Boulevard des Capucines
, two paintings by Cézanne, and one by Eugène Boudin. See Tucker,
Claude Monet: Life and Art
(New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 77–8.

25
   On these transactions, see Daniel Wildenstein,
Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné
, vol. 1: 1840–1881 (1974), p. 226.

26
   Hoschedé,
Claude Monet
, vol. 1, p. 45.

27
   Quoted in Paul Hayes Tucker,
Monet in the ’90s: The Series Paintings
, exhibition catalogue (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1989), p. 3. For the success of Monet in 1889, see Tucker, ibid., p. 59.

28
   
L’Art moderne
, July 7, 1889;
L’Art et les Artistes
, July 1909; and Gourmont, “L’Oeil de Claude Monet,” in
Promenades philosophiques
(Paris, 1905), quoted in Wildenstein,
Monet, or the Triumph of Impressionism
, p. 376.

29
   Joachim Gasquet,
Cézanne
(Paris: Les Éditions Bernheim-Jeune, 1921), p. 90.

30
   
Le Carnet de la semaine
, July 1, 1917.

31
   
Modern Art
, January 1897. For the “Giverny trick,” see Bourguignon, ed.,
Impressionist Giverny
, p. 23.

32
   
Le Temps
, June 7, 1904.

33
   WL 1151.

34
   Sacha Guitry,
If I Remember Right
, trans. Lewis Galantière (London: Methuen, 1935), p. 232.

35
   For Monet’s earnings: Wildenstein,
Monet, or the Triumph of Impressionism
, p. 399. For the salary of Paris workmen: Paul Hayes Tucker, “Revolution in the Garden: Monet in the Twentieth Century,” in Tucker et al.,
Monet in the 20th Century
(New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 17 and note 7 on p. 286.

36
   
Brush and Pencil
, March 1905.

37
   
Revue Mensuelle du Touring-Club de France
, May and September 1906. Automobiles owned by Monet and his family included several Panhards, a Mendelssohn, a Mors, a Peugeot, a Lion-Peugeot, a Peugeot Torpedo, a Zédel, a De Dion–Bouton, and a Clément-Bayard.

38
   
Le Temps
, July 19, 1901.

39
   WL 1736.

40
   
L’Art et les Artistes
, November 1905.

41
   Hoschedé, vol. 1, p. 37.

42
   Gustave Geffroy,
L’Art et les artistes
, November 1920.

43
   WL 2024a.

44
   WL 1962, 1968, and 1977.

45
   Quoted in Wildenstein,
Monet, or the Triumph of Impressionism
, p. 217.

46
   WL 1972.

47
   Quoted in Marianne Alphant,
Claude Monet: une vie dans le paysage
(Paris: Hazan, 1993), p. 644; and WL 1989.

48
   WL 2023.

49
   Quoted in Wildenstein,
Monet, or the Triumph of Impressionism
, p. 331.

50
   
Gazette des Beaux-Arts
, April 1, 1883.

51
   Ambrose Vollard,
Paul Cézanne
, trans. H. L. van Doren (London: Brentano, 1924), p. 117; and Gasquet,
Cézanne
, p. 90

52
   
Le Petit Parisien
, August 3, 1912.

53
   
Gil Blas
, September 3, 1913.

54
   WL 2097.

55
   
Brush and Pencil
, March 1905.

56
   Where and when the two men first met is not recorded. Clemenceau’s biographer speculates that they may have met in the studio of the painter Jean-Baptiste Delestre. See Jean-Baptiste Duroselle,
Clemenceau
(Paris: Fayard, 1988), p. 43. Dallas reports that Clemenceau came to Giverny for the first time in 1890 (
At the Heart of a Tiger
, p. 267).

57
   Hoschedé, vol. 1, p. 40, and vol. 2, p. 111. Hoschedé claims that Monet voted for the first time after World War I.

58
   Geffroy,
L’Art et les artistes
, November 1920. Marianne Alphant has pointed out their similarities: “The audacity, the pride, the stubbornness, the spontaneous enthusiasm, the passion and lyricism, the violent nature, the incredible youthfulness of the two men—all very similar” (
Claude Monet
, p. 677).

59
   
Georges Clemenceau à son ami Claude Monet: Correspondance
, annotated by Jean-Claude Montant (Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1993), pp. 161, 168, and 182.

60
   
Gil Blas
, January 31, 1914.

61
   
La Croix
, February 8–9, 1914.

62
   Quoted in Duroselle,
Clemenceau
, p. 35.

63
   Quoted Duroselle, p. 34.

64
   
Lettres à une Amie
, p. 184.

65
   
Gil Blas
, January 31, 1914.

66
   Quoted in Dallas,
At the Heart of a Tiger
, p. 439.

67
   Quoted in Wythe Williams,
The Tiger of France: Conversations with Clemenceau
(New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1949), p. 282.

68
   Quoted in Dallas,
At the Heart of a Tiger
, p. 102.

69
   Quoted in Dallas,
At the Heart of a Tiger
, p. 192.

70
   
The Letters of Rudyard Kipling
, ed. Thomas Pinney, vol. 5 (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004), p. 325.

71
   
La Justice
, January 16, 1880.

72
   Quoted in Duroselle,
Clemenceau
, p. 310.

73
   Guitry,
If I Remember Right
, p. 234.

74
   Violet Milner,
My Picture Gallery, 1886–1901
(London: John Murray, 1951), pp. 62–3.