In 1890 Claude Monet retired to his garden in Giverny, having finally won the acclaim of the Paris art world. Here he began his series of paintngs of his garden, now prized by museums the world over and highly respected by art critics as the epitome of the Impressionist technique. As with his other series paintings, such as Rouen Cathedral, his garden became the focus for his technique; his obsessive mission was to capture the impressions of light and colour on a certain object under different conditions. The result is shimmering canvasses of brilliant colour portraying his beloved garden in all weathers. With his increasingly free brushstrokes and sensual rather than representational response these paintings provoke, Monet points the way forward into the 20th century and towards abstraction.