Portrait of the artist as a cranky old genius

Considered the ultimate French garden by impressionism's fans, Giverny was all artifice:

The irony was that it soon became apparent that there was nothing remotely optimistic or even particularly French about the Grande Décoration. Throughout the decade during which Monet wrenched it up from his bowels, the “painter of happiness” behaved like someone short of serotonin. He terrorised his stepdaughter Blanche, who doubled as his daughter-in-law and studio assistant. When he got frustrated with a canvas, which was often, he either kicked it with his clogs or ran it through with a kitchen knife. And while there’s no doubting his genuine horror at the fate befalling France – Verdun was less than 200 miles away from Giverny and four members of his family were at the front – it didn’t stop Monet behaving like a spoiled prince while millions of young men were losing their lives. He insisted that he could only work if the government magicked up a steady supply of cigarettes, petrol and coal, the three things he considered essential to his creative flow. 

Nor, suggests King, in what is a careful unpicking of cherished art historical narratives, does the provenance of the waterlilies stand up to scrutiny. The pond at Giverny was entirely manmade, created by diverting the water supply from the village (when the locals protested that they needed it for their laundry and cattle, “le marquis” told them to get stuffed). And most of the plants were not native but were hothouse cultivars shipped in from South America and Egypt. In short, the fabled waterlily location at Giverny, far from being a natural outcrop of rural France, was a laboratory in which Monet carefully assembled the colours and shapes to which he required access at a moment’s notice (he maintained that the Normandy light changed every seven minutes and he needed to be on hand to capture it on canvas).

But they fueled Monet's last creative triumph, amind wartime, too.