Sydney Eddison

Just as nature inspires art, I believe that art can inspire landscape professionals to "paint" themes and moods into gardens. Claude Monet's work is a striking example of this unconventional relationship between art and landscaping, a connection explored fabulously in Monet the Gardener (Universe Publishing, 2002), a collaboration between Sydney Eddison, who writes and lectures on gardens; and Robert Gordon, a leading authority on French Impressionism. Together, they delve into Monet's obsession with his famous garden at Giverny, describing his fixation on flowers and the struggles he had in creating his lily pond.  Included are letters from Monet, members of his family, journalists and writers from the late 1800s, all of them chronicling the artist's choices among