(Argenteuil) An air of a Swiss chalet with green shutters: welcome to 21 boulevard Karl-Marx in Argenteuil, in the Paris region, a new museum housed in a former home of Claude Monet, who painted several of his masterpieces near the Seine impressionist works.
Posted at 10:14 a.m.
A stone’s throw from the station, the pink house surrounded by a flowery garden almost fell into oblivion. Claude Monet (1840-1926) moved there in 1874 with his family and lived there for four years, when Argenteuil was a popular holiday destination for Parisians.
Inhabited by successive owners and damaged by time, bought by the city in 2003 then renovated from top to bottom, it is reborn today in the form of a museum, accessible from Saturday on the occasion of the European Days of inheritance.
The Impressionist Claude Monet House was conceived as an evocation of the painter’s presence in this city, much more than a testimony to his life, inside some 150 m2.
PHOTO STÉPHANE DE SAKUTIN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Between woody smell and marine lamps, the most original piece plunges the visitor into Monet’s work aboard his boat-studio, which he had built to paint on the water, as close as possible to the motif.
Unlike his famous home in Giverny, which attracts tens of thousands of tourists to Normandy every year, don’t look for his bed, his desk or his easel here.
From floor to ceiling, “nothing is as before”, warns Stéphanie Feze, head of the heritage and tourism unit at the city of Argenteuil.
On the other hand, “the winter garden was completely rebuilt according to the works of Claude Monet”, who had painted this room bathed in light, she specifies.
All the furniture has been antiqued and then repainted. Thus, “it is a visit where, for once, we will have the right to handle objects, furniture”, underlines Mme Feze.
In the drawers or behind fake cupboards appear reproductions of paintings or handwritten letters.
On the water
PHOTO STÉPHANE DE SAKUTIN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The Impressionist Claude Monet House was conceived as an evocation of the painter’s presence in this city, much more than a testimony to his life, inside some 150 m2.
Each room envelops the visitor in a padded atmosphere: from the furniture to the walls, sky blue, peach or old pink tones echo the Impressionist palette.
“We worked to identify architectural markers, the evocation of a cornice, curtains, paneling, and see what needed to be completed […] without going too far and falling into clumsy pastiche”, slips Loup d’Avezac, architect of the Lacaa agency.
Between woody smell and marine lamps, the most original piece plunges the visitor into Monet’s work aboard his boat-studio, which he had built to paint on the water, as close as possible to the motif.
PHOTO STÉPHANE DE SAKUTIN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Each room envelops the visitor in a padded atmosphere: from the furniture to the walls, sky blue, peach or old pink tones echo the Impressionist palette.
“This museum comes to materialize the presence of Claude Monet on the territory of Argenteuil. It is a period of his life which is a very important and fruitful passage, ”notes Laurent Demontoux, deputy director of Val-d’Oise Tourisme.
During this period, Monet produced 259 paintings, of which more than 150 have this territory as their subject.
Among these canvases, Argenteuil Bridge was represented seven times in 1874. The painter refined his pictorial technique, playing with daylight, geometric shapes and the fluidity of the river.
His house also slips into the backdrop of several paintings. Green shutters stand out in Camille Monet in the garden at Argenteuil (1876). Her Woman sitting in the garden (1876) sketches the old veranda.
This new museum is part of an already rich cultural offer for the Val-d’Oise department, which is fully committed to the great painters who have passed through its lands, from the Camille Pissarro museum in Pontoise to the essential pilgrimage to Auvers-sur -Oise, for lovers of Van Gogh.