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Flowerbeds, paths and shade

Gardens

Gardens tended, sat in and walked through. A father kneeling with open arms for his child’s first steps in van Gogh’s copy after Millet, Manet’s Monet family on the grass at Argenteuil, Caillebotte’s chrysanthemums filling a tall canvas, Seurat’s gardener bent double, Pissarro’s Tuileries on a spring morning, and Wen Zhengming’s pavilions in ink. From France and America, China, Japan and an Indian court.

As a puzzle

Green on green is the slow part. In the van Gogh, the Renoir and the Seurats the leaves and the grass are small strokes of nearly one colour, so start from the people, Camille Monet’s white dress, the flower heads and the paths, then fill in around them. Whistler’s Cremorne is nearly all dusk, and the ink garden is pale paper. Keep the count moderate.

A good size here: 50–200 pieces.

Styles here: ImpressionismPost-ImpressionismAmerican PaintingChinese PaintingJapanese PaintingIndian PaintingEgyptian Tomb Painting

Painters here: Vincent van GoghWilliam Merritt ChaseÉdouard ManetPierre-Auguste RenoirCamille PissarroJames McNeill Whistler

14 pictures, pick one to build

Chrysanthemums in the Garden at Petit-Gennevilliers Gustave Caillebotte, 1893 First Steps, after Millet Vincent van Gogh, 1890 Cremorne Gardens, No. 2 James McNeill Whistler, ca. 1870–80 Garden of the Inept Administrator Wen Zhengming, 1551 Chinese Women in a Palace Garden Formerly attributed to Kano Eitoku, late 16th century Maharana Amar Singh II with Ladies of the Zenana outside the Picture Hall at Rajnagar Attributed to Stipple Master, ca. 1707–8 Funeral Ritual in a Garden, Tomb of Nakhtmin Charles K. Wilkinson, 1921; original ca. 1479–1425 BCE The Monet Family in Their Garden at Argenteuil Edouard Manet, 1874 Study for "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" Georges Seurat, 1884 Alice Gerson in Prospect Park William Merritt Chase, 1886 Summer Garden Chen Chun, ca. 1530 Nini in the Garden (Nini Lopez) Auguste Renoir, 1876 The Gardener Georges Seurat, 1882–83 The Garden of the Tuileries on a Spring Morning Camille Pissarro, 1899