Giverny

Claude Monet, founder of the impressionist school of painting, settled in Giverny, France, in 1883 and remained until his death 43 years later.Inspired by the tranquil Normandy countryside and his own artfully landscaped surroundings, Monet did some of his finest work here. So did many other artists, including a number of prominent American painters attracted both by the presence of the master and Giverny itself: a place profoundly rural but only 50 miles west of Paris.Nearly two dozen of Monet's dappled landscapes from this Seine valley village go on display today at the Walters Art Gallery.

About a month ago, I said I was finished planting annuals for the season. Wrong.  I just planted six more on Sunday morning.   I think seeing Monet’s garden at Giverny made me long for more color in our garden, when I returned from Paris 10 days ago. First, some straightening up and weeding had to happen. And some pruning. I bought some big pink begonias on sale at Green Fields Saturday morning, after my husband and I had spent two hours pruning an aucuba bush that had become a giant.

A few years ago, Gabrielle Spiegel took a long look at "25 years worth of weeds" covering an empty hill across the road from her house on Poplar Hill Road in North Baltimore. It was an eyesore on the scenic rambling street in a city neighborhood that looks like a country village. She offered to buy the land, a quarter of an acre, for $700.Now it is a vision as lovely as a painting.In fact, it is a vision as lovely as a Claude Monet painting. On the hill, Spiegel, a medieval historian, re-created a French country garden similar to the one Monet made famous in his Giverny masterpieces.

After 37 years, I am back in Paris. It feels as if I had just left about a month ago. The streets come back easily, the language not quite so easily, but easier than I had imagined. The crowds are greater, not just because it is June, but because the world is smaller. More people travel more often. A multi-generational family from Brazil rode on the train with us yesterday from the Gare St. Lazare to Giverny to see Monet's house and garden. The last time I was here, neither house nor garden was open daily to the public.

An article in Tuesday's Sun about a 1998 Monet exhibit at the Walters Art Gallery misspelled the name of the curator overseeing the show. He is William R. Johnston.The Sun regrets the errors.The Walters Art Gallery will bring 22 rarely seen paintings of French Impressionist master Claude Monet to Baltimore in 1998, its director Gary Vikan announced yesterday at a ceremonial contract signing with the Musee Marmottan of Paris, which owns the world's largest collection of Monet's works.The exhibition, titled "Monet: Late Paintings of Giverny from the Musee Marmottan," is expected to draw as many as 200,000 visitors to the Walters during its nine-week stay, March 29 to May 31, 1998.

Near the beginning of the show of 22 late Monet paintings that opens today at the Walters Art Gallery, there's a 10-foot-long canvas covered with strokes and loops and wisps and jabs of color. It's called "Water Lilies" (1917-1919), but it doesn't look like waterlilies.This work is a sketch, the beginnings of a painting. Monet would not have sent it into the world until he had developed it further. But to present-day eyes, conditioned by 20th-century abstraction, it could be complete. And it looks positively prophetic.

About a month ago, I said I was finished planting annuals for the season. Wrong.  I just planted six more on Sunday morning.   I think seeing Monet’s garden at Giverny made me long for more color in our garden, when I returned from Paris 10 days ago. First, some straightening up and weeding had to happen. And some pruning. I bought some big pink begonias on sale at Green Fields Saturday morning, after my husband and I had spent two hours pruning an aucuba bush that had become a giant.

TOWSON STATE UNIVERSITYAsian Arts Center's Roberts Gallery. Modern ink paintings by Yu Peng.Yu Peng's paintings are all on scrolls, but that's where the similarity to traditional Chinese ink painting ends: He draws his inspiration from the bright colors of folk art and the two-dimensionality of ancient tomb rubbings, and his portrait subjects are disproportionately large to their environment. "For me his painting is some kind of subconscious style," says gallery director Suewhei Shieh, "whimsical, spontaneous, with not a lot of planning.

A young woman stands at the edge of a clearing, oblivious to the mottled brown cow that has just wandered out of the woods behind her. As her nimble fingers embroider a bit of white cloth, she seems to be musing about things far away. This sun-dappled scene, with its hint of melancholy, was painted in 1888 by Theodore Robinson, one of the first American artists to adopt the new impressionist style in France. Robinson completed La Vachere (roughly translated as The Cowgirl) while living in the tiny French farming village of Giverny, 40 miles northeast of Paris, where Claude Monet, one of the pioneers of impressionism in the 1870s, had settled only a few years earlier.

After 37 years, I am back in Paris. It feels as if I had just left about a month ago. The streets come back easily, the language not quite so easily, but easier than I had imagined. The crowds are greater, not just because it is June, but because the world is smaller. More people travel more often. A multi-generational family from Brazil rode on the train with us yesterday from the Gare St. Lazare to Giverny to see Monet's house and garden. The last time I was here, neither house nor garden was open daily to the public.

With paintings by the masters, rare books and home goods crafted hundreds of years ago, Baltimore's Convention Center will become a museum of sorts next week — but one where people with able wallets can bring home the exhibits. The Baltimore Summer Antiques Show, one of the city's longest-running events, returns with all of the gilded finery people have come to expect from the show — one of the largest and most prestigious in the country. All told the show includes more than 200,000 pieces, everything from fine art, furniture, silver, jewelry, porcelain, glass and textiles — with price tags ranging from the modest — to a painting that sets the record for the most expensive item ever offered at the show: a Monet you could hang in your living room for $5.8 million.

A young woman stands at the edge of a clearing, oblivious to the mottled brown cow that has just wandered out of the woods behind her. As her nimble fingers embroider a bit of white cloth, she seems to be musing about things far away. This sun-dappled scene, with its hint of melancholy, was painted in 1888 by Theodore Robinson, one of the first American artists to adopt the new impressionist style in France. Robinson completed La Vachere (roughly translated as The Cowgirl) while living in the tiny French farming village of Giverny, 40 miles northeast of Paris, where Claude Monet, one of the pioneers of impressionism in the 1870s, had settled only a few years earlier.

A Memorable Place Artist's vision of Monet's inspirations By Ginda Simpson SPECIAL TO THE SUN On a recent visit to France, I had the opportunity to visit Giverny, a rural village about 30 miles northwest of Paris. It is where Claude Monet had his home and studio, and where he immortalized his gardens in paintings. The 19th-century farmhouse was unpretentious when Monet rented it in 1883. Its barns became his studio, looking out onto a kitchen garden and a flowering orchard. Beyond the road, poplars border a rippling stream, and a half-mile away is the winding River Seine, bordered on each side by wooded hills.

A few years ago, Gabrielle Spiegel took a long look at "25 years worth of weeds" covering an empty hill across the road from her house on Poplar Hill Road in North Baltimore. It was an eyesore on the scenic rambling street in a city neighborhood that looks like a country village. She offered to buy the land, a quarter of an acre, for $700.Now it is a vision as lovely as a painting.In fact, it is a vision as lovely as a Claude Monet painting. On the hill, Spiegel, a medieval historian, re-created a French country garden similar to the one Monet made famous in his Giverny masterpieces.

Claude Monet, founder of the impressionist school of painting, settled in Giverny, France, in 1883 and remained until his death 43 years later.Inspired by the tranquil Normandy countryside and his own artfully landscaped surroundings, Monet did some of his finest work here. So did many other artists, including a number of prominent American painters attracted both by the presence of the master and Giverny itself: a place profoundly rural but only 50 miles west of Paris.Nearly two dozen of Monet's dappled landscapes from this Seine valley village go on display today at the Walters Art Gallery.

Near the beginning of the show of 22 late Monet paintings that opens today at the Walters Art Gallery, there's a 10-foot-long canvas covered with strokes and loops and wisps and jabs of color. It's called "Water Lilies" (1917-1919), but it doesn't look like waterlilies.This work is a sketch, the beginnings of a painting. Monet would not have sent it into the world until he had developed it further. But to present-day eyes, conditioned by 20th-century abstraction, it could be complete. And it looks positively prophetic.

The Baltimore Museum of Art is hoping you'll want to take Monet home with you. Or give Monet as a Christmas gift. Or have a little Monet hanging around the office.In conjunction with its newest exhibition, "Claude Monet; Impressionist Masterpieces from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston," which opens today and runs through Jan. 19, 1992, the museum has opened a second gift shop devoted just to Monet reproductions, books on Monet and things with a Monet motif.Museum shop manager Steven Rostkowski has been haunting the gift shows and canvassing gift suppliers for Monet items for over a year and his search was wildly successful:There are 26 different books on Monet, 15 Monet posters, 12 Monet calendars, nine assortments of boxed Monet stationery, nine Monet puzzles, six Monet T-shirts, Monet engagement calendars large and small, a Monet tote bag, Monet mugs, Monet bookmarks, Monet postcard books, Monet bridge sets, Monet picture frames, Monet blank books, Monet desk accessories, Monet portfolios, Monet decorative boxes, Monet shopping bags, Monet videotapes, Monet flower seeds, perfume inspired by Monet gardens -- and to wrap it all up, Monet gift wrap.

With paintings by the masters, rare books and home goods crafted hundreds of years ago, Baltimore's Convention Center will become a museum of sorts next week — but one where people with able wallets can bring home the exhibits. The Baltimore Summer Antiques Show, one of the city's longest-running events, returns with all of the gilded finery people have come to expect from the show — one of the largest and most prestigious in the country. All told the show includes more than 200,000 pieces, everything from fine art, furniture, silver, jewelry, porcelain, glass and textiles — with price tags ranging from the modest — to a painting that sets the record for the most expensive item ever offered at the show: a Monet you could hang in your living room for $5.8 million.

Tickets are available at the Walters Art Gallery for the exhibition "Monet: Paintings of Giverny from the Musee Marmottan." The exhibition of 22 paintings by the French impressionist, seen only for the second time in the United States, will be on view March 29 through May 31.The paintings, which Monet considered among his finest artistic achievements, include the famous Japanese footbridge, magnificent waterlilies, blooming roses and colorful irises.Admission...

An article in Tuesday's Sun about a 1998 Monet exhibit at the Walters Art Gallery misspelled the name of the curator overseeing the show. He is William R. Johnston.The Sun regrets the errors.The Walters Art Gallery will bring 22 rarely seen paintings of French Impressionist master Claude Monet to Baltimore in 1998, its director Gary Vikan announced yesterday at a ceremonial contract signing with the Musee Marmottan of Paris, which owns the world's largest collection of Monet's works.The exhibition, titled "Monet: Late Paintings of Giverny from the Musee Marmottan," is expected to draw as many as 200,000 visitors to the Walters during its nine-week stay, March 29 to May 31, 1998.