NPR’s Morning Edition looks into Monet’s garden architecture and finds the artist confronting nature:

[audio:http://www.artmarketmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/NPR_-Monet-in-Giverny.mp3|titles=NPR_ Monet in Giverny]

[A]ccording to Mueller, the pond of Monet’s inspiration wasn’t particularly easy to maintain.

“Monet had one gardener who was in charge of the pond, and his task was to fish out all the dry leaves and prevent the water rats from eating the waterlily bulbs,” she says.

Monet himself took daring steps to realize his masterpieces.

“He needed water to have his pond,” Mueller says, “so without any official permission, he brought one arm of the river through his garden.”

The town tried to fine him when he tapped the Epte River, but his friend George Clemenceau — a powerful journalist, politician and future French prime minister — stepped in, and Monet got to have his pond.

Monet the Gardner: Life, and Art, Grow at Giverny (NPR)