It's called a clos (it rhymes with "oh") because it's enclosed with a wall of hedges.
There were so many beautiful plants. Even though autumn is just about to begin, the garden was full of colors. It had red, yellow, orange, blue and purple. And what's a good thing to do with colors? Paint!
These flowers inspired Claude Monet to paint. He painted in the style called "impressionism". To the eye of an impressionist, everything is about colors, light and movement. Take a look at one of my photos of the garden. Now close your eyes and imagine those flowers moving in the wind. Imagine the brightest colors, the ones that pop out. Impressionism takes all that and puts it on a canvas. Do you like drawing or painting? I'd love to see what you come up with!
The tradition of the Clos Normand is not only beautiful. It's also useful. The way things were organized made it easy to grow and harvest plants. Normandy is famous for its apples and pears. The plants produce fruit to make cider, jams and candy.
Impressionism, on the other hand, is important in the community because it's what made Giverny famous. Claude Monet's house brings tourists from all over. Everyone comes to see the beautiful flowers.
Impressionism also changed the way artists look at the world. Before, artists mostly only painted important people. They made portraits of kings and queens, for example, or historical figures. This made it difficult for ordinary people to enjoy art in the same way. They were too poor to hire artists to paint them.
So Impressionists started a new trend. They started painting landscapes, pictures of mountains and hills and fields.
