November Not Fiction Book Discussions

In conversation with his publisher, Bloomsbury Publishing, author and art historian Ross King said, "Most of my books have been studies of crucial and difficult moments in the lives of artists. I'm interested in drilling down deeply into the years when they struggle with the works that ultimately become their greatest achievements. I'm fascinated by how historical events and personal relationships have an impact on these masterpieces." In Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies, King explores in expansive biographical, historical, and cultural detail the twelve years during which Claude Monet painted the enormous canvasses of his Water Lilies series.

Monet intended for his Water Lilies paintings, ultimately gifted to the French public and housed in the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris, to be "an asylum of peaceful meditation." However, in these last twelve years of his life, he was troubled by the dangers and privations of World War I, the loss of friends and family to age and illness, his own failing eyesight, and challenges to his artistic prominence by a new generation of artists. Most of all, Monet was challenged by his attempt to create for his viewers a fully immersive experience of the moment-to-moment shifting of light, color, and form that he perceived at his beloved lily ponds at Giverny. Like author Marcel Proust in his massive novel In Search of Lost Time, Monet was attempting to capture time itself. 

What do you think? Were you familiar with Monet's Water Lilies before reading Mad Enchantment? Have you seen them in person? What were your thoughts and feelings about these paintings before reading King's book? How has your understanding of this work changed after reading the book? What kind of person was Claude Monet? Did anything about his life or personality surprise you? What was the importance of family and friendship, especially his friendship with journalist and politician Georges Clemenceau, to his late work and reputation? How do the Water Lilies reflect their historical and cultural moment? What did Monet's contemporary, the writer Henri Ghéon, mean when he said that Monet "paints in time"? To what degree do you think Monet's loss of vision affected the style of his late paintings, and to what degree "his determination to push the boundaries of painting," his "mad enchantment" with the "luminous abyss" of his water lily ponds, or his suppression of the female image? How do you explain the rise and fall and rise again of Monet's popularity and artistic reputation as well as that of Impressionism in general? What is Monet's legacy to the history of art? Do you think he would be pleased with this legacy?

Enjoy a virtual visit with the Water Lilies at the Musée de l'Orangerie.

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, November 7, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, November 16, at 11:00 a.m. at the Earth Fare Café (the West Ashley Branch Library is closed until further notice due to Tropical Storm Irma).