The Garden at Bougival (Berthe Morison, 1884)
YES, PLEASE
Dear Berthe,
Many thanks for the invitation. Yes, I’d love to visit you in Bougival. Not so much because I want to see your house, though I expect it’s splendid! I can’t imagine an artist obsessed with light and the ecstasy of color living anywhere dim and dull. No, I confess, I want to lounge in your vast gardens – abundant, dappled blooms – roses, hydrangeas, hollyhocks. To devour all their tones and shades. To see the Seine flow slowly and calmly, day by day.
Want to kick off my shoes, like your daughter Julie, and wade in the thick lawn; to spend hours in that lush enclosure. Want to see where you thrived in the Seine’s river light. Enough to make the heart sing!
Victorian by birth you may have been, but you weren’t invisibly demure like so many women. For that I thank you. Expect me shortly.
Notes: Berthe Morisot lived and worked in Bougival, France, not far from Paris, at 4 rue de la Princesse where she rented a house and spent every summer between 1881 and 1884, making at least 40 paintings — The Fable (1883), The Quay at Bougival (1883), On the Veranda (1884), Garden at Bougival (1884), Eugène Manet and his daughter in the garden (1883), Roses trémières (Hollyhocks) (1884), and more.
I love hybrid poetry and Victorian gardens! The beautiful imagery in this piece makes me want an invitation, too!
I was so taken with this poem and had not seen Berthe’s work before, so thank you for the introduction! I would love to sit in this lush garden, too, where all our hearts can sing!
This was perfect in introducing those who haven’t heard of Morisot, which I haven’t. I enjoy the poem being, both, an ode to the artist and an acceptance to an invitation to a place anyone would love to be. The details of color and texture and nature all made me want to go there. And the “Expect me shortly” was Dickinson-esque.
Lovely! This has multiple levels of enjoyment from the painting to the anticipation of time in the gardens and the time with Berthe herself. Just imagine warm days painting and writing. Oh yes, expect me shortly! So very nice!