Exploring the Impressionist garden
The year 2024 marks the 150th anniversary of the first group show by a young group of artists who later became known as the Impressionists. To honor this anniversary, we have launched a series of tours dedicated to visiting some of the gardens designed and by these artists. Our Picturesque Voyages tours to Impressionist artists’ gardens explores why these artists’ chose gardens as subjects for their paintings. We highly recommend combining our garden tours with museum visits in order to fully explore the relationship between painting and gardens. Visit our museum tours at this link.
Tours that connect historic garden design and art
During the 1860s and 1870s, a group of young painters exploring new techniques outside their studios, applied visible brushstrokes to canvas to record their perception of primary colors: reds and greens, yellows and purples, oranges and blues. It’s not surprising that painters turned to gardens as a favorite subject, with perennial and annual flowers offering unique opportunities to depict vibrant colors. These artists considered their canvases as scientifically ‘naturalistic,’ radically changing the foundations of picturesque viewing and creating the Impressionist movement. To learn more about this subject, visit our blog series, Nature into Art. If you would like to learn more about how Impressionist painting influences contemporary garden design, contact us for an exclusive tour.
Then & Now: Each tour begins with an iBook presentation of images selected from historical archives, providing a comparative context for viewing Paris today. After the tour, you can add your own photos to create a personal souvenir of your Picturesque Voyage.
Picturesque Voyages Tours Adhere to Recommended Health and Safety Guidelines
- Masks can be provided upon request.
- Tours are limited to 6 people. Family groups may be larger.
- All garden and walking tours maintain social distancing standards.
Custom tours are our specialty. Contact us to plan a personalized itinerary for a most memorable, life-long learning experience.
Claude Monet at Giverny
Full Day Tour: House and Garden Tour: (Prices available upon request, price includes transport and entrance fees, luncheon is not included).
Our visit to Giverny is a celebration of floriculture for garden lovers in all seasons. When Claude Monet moved to Giverny in 1883, he was a struggling painter. He transformed the surrounding landscape into a private garden that inspired his artistic practice over the next fifty years. Monet planted the gardens with annual flowers so that he could develop his palette, contrasting yellow, red, purple and blue square flower beds. After touring these, we move on to discover the lily pond, perhaps the most iconic picturesque landscape, where Monet probed how light fell on the waterlilies that dotted his pond. We conclude with a visit to his house and studio (including Madame Monet’s kitchen) where we see the authentic Japanese prints that influenced his work as well as his decision to place a ‘Japanese bridge’ in his garden. We highly recommend combining this tour with a visit to the Musée Marmottan or the Orangerie, both museums hold original paintings of his gardens at Giverny. (Please note that in 2024 it may not be possible to visit the Orangerie during the Olympic Games).
Vincent Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise
Full-Day Tour: (Prices Available Upon Request)
Although Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) did not create a garden at Auvers-sur-Oise, where he lived from May to July 1890, his vision of the landscape was profoundly picturesque and influenced post-impressionist painters. The artist produced an impressive 74 paintings and 33 drawings during a stay lasting just two months, which ended with his death by self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Every day, he took his palate and paints to paint in the gardens and fields of this tiny village, which has been forever marked by the troubled artist’s sojourn. Our tour to Auvers-sur-Oise includes exploring some of the places he immortalized on canvas as well as a visit to the room where he lodged at the Auberge Ravoux and his final resting place in the village cemetery. We highly recommend combining this tour with a visit to the Musée d’Orsay, to view the temporary exhibit on Van Gogh’s time in Auvers (autumn 2023) or to Montmartre where he lived for two years upon arriving in France in 1886.
Gustave Caillebotte at Yerres
Full Day House & Garden Tour: Prices Available Upon Request
Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) is not as well-known as his contemporaries, like Claude Monet or Auguste Renoir, but his career and patronage were essential to the Impressionist Movement. This excursion visits the Caillebotte family home and estate in Yerres, southeast of Paris, and starts with a tour of the exceptionally restored interiors. Caillebotte was a passionate gardener at Yerres and cultivated three different gardens on the estate: an extensive kitchen garden, pleasure grounds and flower parterres that became the subjects of his paintings. Caillebotte and Monet exchanged letters (and seeds) for their gardens. Additionally, Caillebotte depicted boating scenes on the Yerres River which runs through the property, recalling Monet’s passion for painting light reflected on water. Caillebotte was an important collector of his fellow Impressionists’ work, buying over 60 canvases and later donating them to the French State. We highly recommend combining this visit with a tour of the Musée d’Orsay collections where we can view some of his paintings and those he collected.
Auguste Renoir and the Gardens of Montmartre
3-Hour Museum and Garden Tour: Prices Available Upon Request
Founded in 1960, the Musée de Montmartre traces the history of Montmartre, a village annexed to the city of Paris in 1860. Until the early 20th century, the area of Montmartre was considered a bohemian zone, notably because it was extraordinarily inexpensive for struggling artists to rent studios. Today, the former Maison de Bel Air – restored and converted into a museum – recalls the history of the village and its artistic heritage. The museum reconstituted the studio of Suzanne Valadon, a model turned painter, who lived here with her son and fellow artist, Maurice Utrillo. Many other artists rented spaces for their studios, including Auguste Renoir from 1875 to 1877. Renoir painted his masterpieces le Bal du Moulin de la Galette and La Balancoire while in residence here. After visiting the interiors of the museum we will also see its ‘Renoir Gardens,’ which offer breathtaking views of the vineyards of Montmartre (le Clos Montmartre), and the northern cityscape of Paris, suggesting why Renoir chose to turn this picturesque site into art. We highly recommend combining this visit with a tour of the Musée d’Orsay collections where we can view some of the paintings Renoir, and other artists, made of Montmartre.
Other Garden Tours
Interested in visiting other gardens in and around Paris? See our other garden tours in Paris at this link or gardens around Paris here.
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