Everyday Monet

Book excerpt: Bring Monet’s paintings and gardens to life using this gorgeously illustrated book that will teach you how to create a Monet lifestyle from your living room to your kitchen to your garden—from the documentarian and author of Monet’s Palate Cookbook, with the support of the American steward and all the head gardeners at Giverny. Aileen Bordman has long been influenced by the work of Claude Monet, one of the founders of French Impressionist painting whose esteemed works capturing the simple beauties of fin de siècle French life—from waterlilies to haystacks—have fetched astonishing sums at private auction houses and can be found in the greatest art museums around the globe. With direct access to Giverny through a pair of insiders—her mother, a steward of the Giverny estate, and its head gardener—she transports you to Monet’s garden at Giverny, the third most visited site in France, in Everyday Monet. Combining the history, palette colors, and designs of Monet’s gardens and paintings in this one-of-a-kind volume, Aileen shows how to encapsulate a home and lifestyle inspired by the artist. Filled with insights, step-by-step instructions, musings, recipes, gorgeous photography, and how-to graphics, Everyday Monet teaches how to grow a garden like Monet, preserve a waterlily inside the home, decorate a dining room table or a bathroom inspired by Monet’s aesthetic, and prepare foods that inspire your inner-Impressionist. Filled with lush photos of Monet’s milieu—from the gardens of Giverny to the streets of Normandy—and reproductions of Monet’s most famous paintings, Everyday Monet is a practical guide to finding ways to implement Monet’s beautiful designs into any home and garden, whether you live on a country estate or in a city apartment, and is a memorable keepsake Monet devotees will treasure.