The Circle Volume 13 April 2022

THE CIRCLE

VOLUME 13 APRIL 2022

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1. Giverny

In this issue:

When impressionist artist Claude Monet won the French lottery he bought a house in Giverny, a village in Normandy, France. He laid out a garden with lily ponds and began painting the famous water lilies that would occupy him continuously for the next 20 years.

Monet remained at Giverny for the rest of his life.

2. The Cheetahs at Rietvlei Midstreamers are fortunate to have one of the world's largest urban nature reserves only 30 minutes away from home. Rietvlei Nature Reserve swaps cheetahs with other game reserves in South Africa to boost the gene pool.

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1.

GIVERNY

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Introduction In 1883, the impressionist artist Claude Monet (18401926) rented a house in Giverny, a village in Normandy about 65 kms outside Paris. It was a life-changing decision for many reasons.

The house had a barn that doubled as a painting studio, with apple orchards and a small garden. It was close enough to the local schools for the children to attend.

The surrounding landscape had many natural areas for Monet to paint.

The house provided a stable domestic base, and Monet's fortunes began to change for the better as his agent sold more and more of his paintings. Monet remained at Giverny for the rest of his life.

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Giverny The family expanded the gardens, which were Monet's greatest source of inspiration for 40 years. In 1890, when Monet won the French lottery, he was able to buy the house, some surrounding buildings, and more land for his gardens. He built a greenhouse and a second studio, a spacious well-lit building with skylights.

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Monet regarded his garden as a lifelong project and his greatest masterpiece. He wrote daily instructions to his gardener, with precise designs and layouts for seasonal plantings. He kept all the invoices for his floral purchases and built a large collection of botany books. As his wealth grew, his garden evolved. He remained its architect, even after he hired seven gardeners.

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Giverny Monet’s house is located at the top of the gardens, a pastel-pink building with green shutters. Inside, the rooms are painted different colours, restored exactly as they were when Monet lived there.

Monet’s love of light and colour is clearly displayed in his choice of decor.

In the kitchen, blue-and-white Rouen tiles are perfectly paired with copper pots and utensils.

The massive room was used as a living room and to prepare meals for Monet, his wife Alice and his eight children and stepchildren.

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Giverny In the adjacent dining room, luminous yellow walls and chairs combine with a red-and-white checked floor, showcasing his collection of Japanese woodblock prints—a major inspiration for the artist.

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At his house, Monet met with artists, writers, intellectuals and politicians from France, England, Japan and the United States.

His fame in the U.S. grew steadily. Monet had oneman shows in New York in 1891 and in Boston in 1892.

Increasing numbers of private American collectors came to visit Giverny in person.

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Giverny In 1899, he began painting the famous water lilies that would occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life. Depictions of the water lilies, with alternating light and mirror-like reflections, absorbed him and became an integral part of his work. He would ultimately produce over 250 paintings of the Waterlilies.

Giverny In 1902, Monet purchased additional land with a water meadow, increasing the size of his water garden by nearly 4000 square metres. White water lilies local to France were planted along with imported cultivars from South America and Egypt, resulting in a vibrant display of yellow, blue and white. The pond was enlarged with easels installed all around to allow different perspectives to be captured.

Giverny

Every morning during Monet’s lifetime, a gardener would climb into a rowboat and row around the pond, meticulously cleaning the water lilies that had collected soot from passing trains.

Monet insisted that, when he started painting in the morning, the water lilies would be pristine.

There are gardeners working in the garden today whose job is to remove every fallen leaf from the surface of the water every day.

Giverny After Monet died in 1926, his son Michel inherited the estate. He had no interest in Giverny and his stepsister Blanche Monet became the caretaker of the house and garden until her death in 1947. After her death the house and garden fell into neglect.

In 1966 Michel bequeathed the house, garden, and water lily pond to the French Academy of Fine Arts.

Gerald van der Kemp, the curator at Versailles, raised funds from American donors for a project to restore Monet’s home. The house and gardens were opened to visitors in 1980. Today Giverny is visited by tourists from all over the world.

Giverny The village of Giverny is easily accessible from Paris by train from Gare Saint-Lazare station. Buy a ticket for Vernon which is the closest stop to Giverny.

Monet’s gardens are open daily, 9:30 am – 6:00 pm, midMay to November, and closed during the winter months.

Tickets to Monet’s gardens can be purchased on site or in advance on Giverny’s tourism website (recommended).

The train ride to Vernon takes 45 minutes. A bus or taxi will take you the rest of the way (7 kilometers) from the Vernon train station to Giverny. The buses are easy to locate, just follow the Monet-themed footprints.

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THE CHEETAHS AT RIETVLEI

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Introduction Midstreamers are fortunate to have one of the world's largest urban nature reserves only 30 minutes away from home.

The Rietvlei Nature Reserve in Irene occupies 3 800 hectares of open grassland within the city limits of Tshwane, formerly named Pretoria, and offers superb sightings of the wild life of the South African highveld.

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Rietvlei animals Among the many species of animals found in the reserve are two of Africa's "big five" the buffalo and white rhino, a family of hippos, Burchell's zebra, many varieties of buck including eland, (the world’s largest antelope), black wildebeest, and ostrich.

Patient visitors may also come across bushpig, hyena, black-backed jackal, porcupine, springhare, aardwolf and banded mongoose.

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Birds at Rietvlei Rietvlei is also a bird lover’s paradise, with spectacular sightings of blue cranes, secretary birds, and a breeding pair of fish eagles.

Other species include the malachite kingfisher, goliath heron, darter, reed cormorant, and green-backed heron.

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Cheetahs There are only 7,000 cheetahs living in the wild today.

More than half live in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, but cheetah populations in Namibia and Botswana have been declining. In Zimbabwe, there are only 150 to 170 cheetahs left.

Cheetah skins and body parts are sought-after items in African muthi markets, and cheetahs are often killed in territorial disputes with larger cats.

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Cheetah relocation The Rietvlei Reserve takes part in a relocation project run by the Endangered Wildlife Trust in South Africa, which has almost doubled the population of cheetahs in this project in ten years.

The program moves cheetahs between (mostly private) game reserves to boost the gene pool. The relocated cheetahs are kept in fenced enclosures for four to six weeks to allow them to acclimatise to their new home environment prior to being set free.

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Cheetah relocation The cheetah is the world’s fastest land mammal over short distances, reaching speeds of up to 70 miles per hour. South Africa is the only country in the world with an increasing number of wild cheetahs, having grown from about 500 in 1975 to nearly 1,300 today.

Cheetahs at the Rietvlei Nature Reserve don’t have competition from other large predators so the reserve is a perfect place to form part of the programme.

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Njozi In August 2020 the Endangered Wildlife Trust relocated a female Cheetah named Njozi, from the Western Cape to Rietvlei. Njozi means “dreams” in Swahili.

The 18-month-old female’s ancestry can be traced back to a female captured in the Kalahari in 2003, and a male that escaped from Mountain Zebra National Park in 2014, but was recaptured close to Graaf Reinet.

Njozi is based permanently at Rietvlei.

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Thaba A new male cheetah, Thaba, was released into Rietvlei in 2021 to join a sub-adult Njozi for breeding purposes.

Described as a magnificent large male with plenty of personality, the six-year-old male hails from the Shambalala Reserve in Limpopo.

Njozi and her cubs In March 2022 game rangers at Rietvlei Nature Reserve spotted five cheetah cubs which they estimate to be about six weeks old. The cubs were birthed by their proud cheetah mother Njozi.

Njozi is a shy mother and is mostly spotted during the early mornings or late afternoons.

Visits to parts of the nature reserve are currently controlled to respect Njozi’s space while she hunts for food, until the cubs reach full maturity and can fend for themselves.

Njozi is a shy mother and is mostly spotted during the early mornings or late afternoons.

Visits to parts of the nature reserve are currently controlled to respect Njozi’s space while she hunts for food, until the cubs reach full maturity and can fend for themselves.

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The Circle The Circle is a private limited circulation magazine produced as a retirement hobby for family and friends, retirees, and interested fellow Midstreamers. The magazine is distributed free of charge.

“Leopards?” Oom (Uncle) Schalk Lourens said – “Oh yes, there are two varieties on this side of the Limpopo River. The chief difference between them is that the one kind of leopard has got a few more spots than the other kind. But when you meet a leopard in the bushveld, unexpectedly, you seldom trouble to count his spots to find out which kind he belongs to.

That is unnecessary. Because whatever kind of leopard it is that you come across this way, you only do one kind of running. And that is the fastest kind”.

Herman Charles Bosman, In the Withaak’s Shade, “Mafeking Road”, 1947.

Photographs in this issue have been sourced from the Monet website, the USA Architectural Digest, the Friends of Rietvlei facebook page, the City of Tshwane website, and my personal collection.