Rouen de Claude Monet Busto en la actualidad

“Mi jardín es mi obra maestra más bella. & #8221; Claude Monet.

Tucked away in a small little square, Place St Amande, is the city of Rouen’s homage to Claude Monet. Admittedly, it is not an unattractive little square, with some very typical medieval timber framed town houses. But not only is the square a bit out of the way, it really does not have anything that one would associate with Claude Monet. It is not as if the timber framed houses were subjects he ever painted, and the Cathedral he has made World-famous can only just be seen on the skyline.

Monet painted the Cathedral over 30 times in the winter of 1892/3. While in Rouen he set up a temporary studio across from the Cathedral where he would work. And even while working in this wonderful medieval city, he was thinking of his garden. From his letters to Alice, we know he met a few gardeners in Rouen from whom he obtained flowers which he then posted back to his house in Giverny.

During his time in Rouen Monet also met Émile Varenne, director of the Botanical Garden. Varenne not only introduced Monet to the gardeners who gave Monet various plants, but he also gave Monet a great deal of advice and friendship. Monet would work on his Cathedral series in the morning and then go to the Botanical Gardens in the afternoon, where he would spend hours in the greenhouses. In a letter to Alice, dated 16 Febrero 1893, he records his amazement for their orchid collection.