February 21st, 2016

I went to see the wonderfully inspiring 'Painting the Modern Garden' at the Royal Academy on Friday that included post impressionist and impressionist artists from the twentieth century such as Sorrolla, Renoir, Monet, Matisse, Klimt, Manet and more. The Manet paintings of his famous pond at Giverny in Normandy were beautiful and absorbing, one piece would have shimmering water reflections with rich dark mauve, chocolate brown and crimson colour combinations, another had the lily flowers reflected in the water with emerald green and muted lime colours in the background with light pink lilies. I found seeing the paintings in the flesh inspired me to want to revisit the lake and lily theme that I'd worked on last year after seeing the rich autumnal tree reflections at Sheffield Park, National Trust http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sheffield-park-and-garden with a new set of ideas.
The painting featured on left above is one of Manet's pond paintings and to the right my Sheffield Park painting from last Autumn.