Famous Painters And The Gardens That Were Their Inspiration

Gardens are really a work of art. The gardener has got to take into account the color, texture, shape, line, and composition when they are designing the garden, which is similar to what a painter does when outlining their work. Each and every seed that is planted is very carefully chosen in order to bring the gardener’s vision to life. Each flower, shrub, and tree are an artistic expression of the planter’s personality. Similarly, a painter’s brush strokes are chosen with the intention to capture the beauty that lies within their mind, and perhaps the painter’s garden.

Gardens became particularly influential on artists around the 19^th century when personal home gardens within a fairly urban environment became popular and accessible for those in the middle class. Before this, gardens were strictly agricultural and aristocratic. Suddenly, average people had the ability to design and tend their own gardens for pleasure and aesthetic value and even inspiring garden pastel paintings- not just for growing food.

Many painters even cultivated beautiful gardens specifically to give us some inspiring garden paintings. Gardens were especially popular with the Impressionists, whose vivid color sense, broad brush strokes, and appreciation of nature paired perfectly with the garden as the subject.

Claude Monet (1840-1926)

Monet had once said “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.” This is very visible in his work, much of which depicts great swaths of colorful blooms. For the final 20 years of his life, the main subject that Monet painted was his garden. He planted the garden with irises and chrysanthemums, exotic flowers that were newly introduced to Europe at the time, so that he could paint these colorful beauties from life.

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

Although Van Gogh was not an avid gardener himself, the gardens that he spent time in obviously meant a lot to him and inspired his work. Van Gogh greatly admired the painter Charles-François Daubigny, and after Daubigny dies Van Gogh traveled to the artist’s home and spent his time painting Daubigny’s expansive garden. The same garden is depicted in many of Van Gogh’s works.