Painting the Modern Garden

The Royal Academy’s exhibition ‘Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse‘ traced the emergence of the modern garden using a vast collection of works by some of the most important Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Avant-Garde artists of the early twentieth century. This film aims to give a flavour of that exhibition, but also bring something extra to the screen. The works are juxtaposed with slow motion shots of flowers, lush foliage, herbaceous borders, lily ponds and trees swaying in the breeze, lingering on the natural world that must have inspired the painters. .

In addition, the film delves into the back stories of the featured artists and their works, travelling to their studios and gardens so the viewer might better understand the artists’ intentions. We learn of Claude Monet’s ground-breaking approach to colour and how his garden evolved alongside the artist’s work, as he moved from the purely figurative to vast abstractions. While Monet provides the most popular pull, other key artists are comprehensively featured. These include Henri Le Sidaner, who settled in Gerberoy, France, where both his garden and house became a constant source of inspiration and Max Liebermann, whose naturalistic style evolved through an altogether different approach to planting in the celebrated landscape which he created on the shores of Lake Wannsee in Germany.

Later in the film the evolution of garden design is covered, giving particular attention to the contemporary work of Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson whose complementary approach to garden style – one focusing on colour and the other on naturalistic and ‘wild’ plantings – were hugely influential at the time. It’s worth remembering that painting in the garden only became possible with the invention of paint in tubes around 1849, creating a feeling of being there. The film, if anything, takes us one step further, and is sure to fascinate artists and gardeners alike.