#110 Monet and Japan: The Bridge at Giverny, A Conversation with Ross King

Saturday, November 15th Live on Zoom

7pm Florence, 10am Los Angeles, 1pm New York

Ross King has made a career elucidating crucial episodes in the history of art and architecture. —Time Magazine

Claude Monet’s paintings of his Japanese bridge are emblematic of his late style of Impressionist painting. They are also a reflection of the horticultural and artistic interests that he pursued for much of his life. This lecture by renowned historian and writer Ross King, will look at these paintings in the context of both the construction of his water lily pond and Japanese bridge in the 1890s as well as his passion for the prints of artists such as Hiroshige and Hokusai. We will see how Monet’s Garden became a living canvas, uniting East and West in a vision that still captivates today.

Monet's interest in Japanese prints heavily influenced his creation of the Japanese-style bridge at his Giverny garden, which became a central motif in his later works. He designed and built the arching, turquoise bridge over a water lily pond he created in 1893, turning the area into his own “artistic medium”. In 1899, he painted a series of 12 works focusing on the bridge, and the garden continued to inspire him until the end of his life.

Ross King is well known to friends of Paola’s Studiolo.  He is the bestselling author of books on Italian, French and Canadian art and history, including Brunelleschi’s Dome (2000), Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling (2002), The Judgment of Paris (2006), Leonardo and The Last Supper (2012), and Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies (2017). A prolific writer, his newest book is The Shortest History of Italy. Covering 3,000 years of Italian history and culture from ancient Rome to COVID-19, it has been praised as a ‘miracle of compression’, a ‘densely packed volume of tantalizing details’, and ‘a splendid companion to ‘a holiday in the bel paese’.

To RSVP: Paola50122@gmail.com

Minimum suggested donation: $28

This talk is free for Friends of Paola's Studiolo!

Look forward to seeing you on Zoom!