Claude Monet - Villen in Bordighera (1884)

 

Colorful splendor and exoticism of the Mediterranean plant world fascinated Claude Monet during his first extended trip to the Riviera in 1884. In the northern Italian coastal town of Bordighera, he painted the garden of Villa Garnier, which the builder of the Paris Opera had erected for himself there. By placing the palm tree in the center of the painting, Monet made the famous architect's building a secondary feature.

In the 1880s, Monet traveled mainly to the Atlantic coast in northern France to paint, where he visited the harbor towns in his native Normandy as well as Belle-Île-sur-Mer in Brittany. Monet only traveled to the Mediterranean region three times: a two-week excursion with Pierre-Auguste Renoir in December 1883 was followed by a three-month stay in Bordighera in 1884 and a four-month stay in Antibes in 1888. The now familiar term Côte d’Azur was coined only in 1887 in a book by the poet Stéphen Liégeard - part of the emerging travel literature in which the region was stylized as an exotic paradise and southern longing place.

Monet was one of the first artists to set up his easel on the Riviera coasts. Following in his footsteps, younger painter colleagues such as the Neo-Impressionists Henri-Edmond Cross and Paul Signac turned their gaze southward from the 1890s and discovered the Côte d'Azur for a new generation of French landscape painters.

In the works that Monet created in Bordighera in 1884, he focused on motifs that were characteristic of the idyllic coastal town, including the gardens with their palm trees, olive trees, and lemon trees. Monet painted this depiction with a view of the Città alta from the garden of Villa Garnier, which the Parisian star architect Charles Garnier had built as a winter residence for his family between 1871 and 1873. It was also known for its elaborately maintained garden, which included several hundred species of plants.

In Monet's depiction, the foreground is entirely devoted to the lush growth of palm trees and shrubs, which are designed with colored accents of yellow, pink, orange, red, and violet in addition to the dominant shades of green. On the left, the elegant tower of Villa Garnier is visible as the only part of the house, which finds a visual echo in the bell tower of the Santa Maria Maddalena church, which makes the silhouette of the old town recognizable in the background. Monet also captured the building in three views that he painted from the Collina dei Mostaccini, including the painting Bordighera, Italy, which is also part of the  Hasso Plattner collection.

Source: Sammlung Barberini