From bestselling author and art historian Ross King, the full history of how Claude Monet created the beloved Water Lilies at the gardens of Giverny, and the fascinating story of the last decade of his life.
Born and raised in Canada, Ross King has lived in England since 1992. In 2002-03, two books of his were published in the United States, Domino, about the world of masquerades and opera in 18th century London and the New York Times bestselling Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling.
An altogether enchanting tale.
*Dava Sobel, author of Longitude, on Brunelleschi's Dome*
[King] consummately meshes biography with art history as he turns
the creation of one resounding masterpiece into a portal on the
artist’s life … Writing with a historical novelist’s attunement to
the interplay of peace, temperament, and society, King brings
readers to Giverny … King sumptuously describes the pleasures of
Giverny … Never before has the full drama and significance of
Monet’s magnificent Water Lilies been conveyed with such knowledge
and perception, empathy and wonder’
*Booklist*
Writing with a historical novelist’s attunement to the interplay of
place, temperament, and society, King brings readers to Giverny
[and] sumptuously describes [its] pleasures … Never before has the
full drama and significance of Monet’s magnificent Water Lilies
been conveyed with such knowledge and perception, empathy and
wonder
*Booklist*
[King] turns his mind, heart, and eyes to Claude Monet … King is
ever the brilliant docent murmuring the right, telling details and
critical backstories in our ear as we move through space and time.
He ultimately brings the man and his work into perfect focus while
increasing his audience’s interest in both all the more … This work
is essential.
*Library Journal*
Vivid … King elegantly reveals the soul of a great artist, the last
Impressionist standing at the end of one of history’s most
remarkable art movements
*Kirkus*
King is a skilled guide to Monet’s bastardy. This book, like his
earlier ones, is as much about the artist’s times as his work
*The Times*
The closing decades of an artist’s life do not generally make the
biographer’s heart beat faster, but Claude Monet is one of a
handful of painters who bucks the pattern of an irrelevant old age.
… A fine, fluent book … A careful unpicking of cherished
art-historical narratives
*Guardian*
Ross King has a track record when it comes to turning such art
stories into gripping narratives … His method is expansive,
including personal, political, social and cultural context in a way
that would horrify some art purists. Never mind, it works. This
latest, perfectly engrossing book is, at one level, simply the
story of how the late lilies – hundreds of yards of them on a
series of gigantic canvases – came to be painted. At another level,
however, it is the story of art and its meanings amid the carnage
of the twentieth century
*Sunday Times*
A homage to how the genius of Monet’s extraordinary eye came
finally to be realised … King has a skill for turning over unlikely
narrative stones
*Literary Review*
Ross King’s Monet might not be an easy man to like, but King is
also very good with the wider picture, and the fascination of this
lively and entertaining book lies as much in its portrait of
first-world-war France as it does in its depiction of Giverny … But
it is in the period detail and character portraits that Mad
Enchantment really comes to life
*Spectator*
Lyrical and dynamic
*Catholic Herald*
Ross King lyrically explores the personal paradise that Monet
constructed at Giverny … King’s title sounds overexcited, but he
justifies it
*Observer*
‘Engrossing history … This scholarly story of Monet’s greatest
project is told with tremendous humour and is filled with
fascinating insights’
*History Today*
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