It is one of the sadder chapters in art history.

Monet's masterpiece Water Lillies

But currently, Paris's Orangerie museum, home to Monet's monumental Water Lillies, is closed while undergoing a major face-lift aimed at restoring the mammoth tableaux to their former glory — by bringing them light.

Set in an obscure corner of the Tuileries gardens by the Seine, the museum is to reopen in late 2004 with a newly refurbished glass roof and galleries for the Water Lillies, as well as a freshly-dug underground exhibition space for its other prestigious collections.

Monet was over 80 and losing his sight when he put the finishing touches to the Water Lillies in the early 1920s, works inspired by his legendary water garden at Giverny, outside Paris.

Hailed by critics as the culmination of his life's work, or "the Sistine Chapel of Impressionism", due to the passion and power streaming from the works, Monet donated the Water Lillies to the French state to celebrate the victory of World War I.

Paris Orangerie is undergoing refurbishment

Originally a hothouse for potted baby orange trees, L'Orangerie was also used for dog-shows, art-shows and theatre, before being turned into a barracks for conscripts and a weapons depot during the war years.

Monet died in 1926 and the following year his eight giant panels, almost a decade in the making, were unveiled to the public displayed in two spacious oval galleries opening onto the gardens, with natural light pouring through the glass dome overhead.

"The Water Lillies were a grand ode to nature, a concentrate of Monet's art," remarks Orangerie curator Pierre Georgel.

"The proximity of the Seine and of the gardens were specially calculated to create a link with the nature outside."

Until the 1960s, Monet's giant light-filled panels delighted Paris museum-goers, who often also would visit the Orangerie's sister museum in the Tuileries gardens, the Jeu de Paume. It housed Impressionist masterpieces that since have been transferred to the Orsay museum across the river.

The 1960s however brought a mixed blessing. The Orangerie was given one of the most fabulous private collections in existence — the Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume collection comprising 144 works by the likes of Cézanne, Renoir, Rousseau, Matisse, Picasso, Derain, Utrillo, Modigliani and Soutine.

It was donated by Juliette Walter, known as "Domenica", widow of Guillaume, a big early 20th century art dealer and philanthropist. She made the donation on condition it be exhibited permanently and in its entirety at the Orangerie.

So again an architect was brought in and the museum remodelled.

This time, a concrete floor was put in above the Water Lillies, shutting out their sun but providing an extra floor of space for the new treasures, the doors to the gardens were sealed off and a huge circular stairway installed.

Visitors from 1965 until the current closure, in 2000, thus had to go upstairs first to see the Walter-Guillaume collection before descending to see the former centre-piece of the museum, the Monet panels, deprived of natural light and airy exit-ways, relegated to a kind of backstairs second-best position.

Under the current EUR 25 million renovation scheme, Monet's Impressionist masterpieces will regain their place "as the living and glorious heart" of the Orangerie, the curator said.

"The Water Lillies will be completely rehabilitated," Georgel said. "Freed of their concrete covering, they will again see real light. The eclipse of live light was the worst outrage they suffered during their crossing of the desert."

February 2003

©AFP