Free Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies by Ross King Page B

The Rose Path, Giverny , 1920–22 (Musée Marmottan Monet)

    Autochrome of Monet in his flower garden, c. 1921

    Monet at work in his large studio, 1920

    The Setting Sun in Room 1 of the Orangerie, flanked by Morning (L) and The Clouds (R)

    The Two Willows in Room 2 of the Orangerie

    Claude Monet’s house in Giverny today

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    I AM GRATEFUL to everyone who assisted me over the course of my research and writing. I’m extremely thankful, as always, to have George Gibson as my editor and publisher. His editorial acumen and patient advice are much appreciated, as is the friendship that now stretches back over five books and more than fifteen years. George was part of this book from conception through publication, and he was never too busy—despite being the busiest person I’ve ever known—to discuss the most abstruse details or to ponder how they fit into the larger picture. His many strokes of the pen and thoughtful injunctions improved the manuscript immeasurably.
    My other huge debt is to Paul Hayes Tucker. Despite a hectic schedule and numerous other commitments, he responded to my queries and then generously read the manuscript in full. Over the course of his career, Dr. Tucker has enlarged and deepened our understanding of Monet’s life and work through both his books and the major exhibitions he has curated. Particularly important for me was Monet in the 20th Century , which I saw at the Royal Academy in London in 1999. My well-thumbed and much-pored-over copy of his catalogue for this exhibition was—like his 1995 biography of Monet—never far from my reach as I worked. I was truly privileged to have him offer his expertise, and to suggest refinements, nuances, and outright corrections.
    Many other people responded to my pleas for help. Mark Asquith was once again among my first readers, giving the manuscript the benefit of his perceptive and quizzical attention. A good friend for the past twenty years, Mark is in many respects my “ideal reader” whose impeccable literary instincts I have come to rely on. Two other friends,Anne-Marie Rigard-Asquith and Frederike Mulot, offered valuable advice on some of the knottier translations.
    For help with other points and problems, or for supplying information, I thank Camille Bidaud (Université Paris-Est); Corinne Charlery (Archives Municipales, Chatou); Danielle Chapelin (Secrétariat de Histoire et Patrimoine de Saint-Étienne); Yann Harlaut; Mark Levitch; Claire Maingon (Université de Rouen); Bernard Rivatton (Musée du Vieux Saint-Étienne); Jean-Michel Peers; Cyrille Sciama (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes); and Dieter Schwarz (Kunstmuseum, Winterthur). I also thank my friend Jean Glasel—like Monet, a Norman by inclination if not quite by birth—for giving me the opportunity to conduct a group tour to Giverny in 2010, and so to begin thinking in earnest about the stories and paintings I would begin exploring in this book.
    My research would not have been possible without the prodigious collections and generous staff of two great libraries where it is always a pleasure to work: the London Library and, in Oxford, the Sackler Library. I was also the beneficiary of the technological wonder that is Gallica, the online digital library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, which permitted me the pleasure of reading one-hundred-year-old newspapers from the comfort of the studio at the bottom of my garden in Oxfordshire.
    For turning my manuscript into a book I thank the wonderful teams at Bloomsbury in New York and London. Linda Johns did a superb job of identifying and tracking down the images for the book, and Jeff Ward created all the maps. I am grateful to the painstaking attention to detail shown by Gleni Bartels; my copyeditor, David Chesanow; my proofreader, Megha Jain; and to Lee Gable for the index. For the cover of the North American edition, I was fortunate to have Patti Ratchford as my designer, and for the UK cover, David Mann. The