Is the Water Lilies series a continuous prayer? Monet's prayers that resonate with the Japanese: [Time of Water Lilies] [Monet Exhibition]

Previously, regarding Monet's representative series, the Water Lilies, I wrote a self-indulgent article wondering, "Did Monet know that water lilies are flowers (lotus) associated with the Pure Land in Buddhism?" and hoping, "I wonder if there will be an exhibition gathering water lily motifs."

Also, in another article about water lilies, I received feedback from note user Shubo, who writes about art, saying, "I don't really resonate with the water lilies." (The following is the comment I received as the reason.)

Indeed...!
There is no doubt that Monet's Water Lilies have a strangeness among his previous works and series due to various overlapping conditions such as "his own garden," "cataracts," and "large decorative paintings." Shubo's feeling of "not liking them very much" was something I had never had or heard of before, so it really caught me off guard. I envy those who have been to the Orangerie.

While the Water Lilies are, needless to say, Monet's representative work, they can also be said to be one of the top one or two biggest earners in the Western art world in Japan.

The National Museum of Western Art's "Monet: The Time of Water Lilies" (October 2024 – February 2025) recorded 807,566 visitors, the fourth largest in the museum's history for a special exhibition. Furthermore, if you include the touring exhibitions in Kyoto and Aichi, it seems the total number of visitors across all venues in Japan has reached over 1 million! Since the top three at the NMWA are things like Louvre exhibitions, this result for an exhibition composed almost entirely of water lilies and the Japanese bridge series is exceptional! Monet is truly amazing; it was super crowded when I actually went.

At this point, for better or worse, I feel that this series has a great power that belongs to a different category than the pursuit of art!

At the beginning, the connection between "Monet's Water Lilies and the Pure Land" that I mentioned in my previous article is discussed from Goro Yamada's perspective in the Monet episode of art critic Goro Yamada's YouTube channel.

It is possible that Monet heard about the existence of the Pure Land from Japanese people or people in Buddhist spheres, such as Kojiro Matsukata, and continued to paint water lilies with the intention of mourning his first wife, Camille. Perhaps Monet, after learning about the Pure Land, started painting water lilies to save himself as well? So this time,

〈The Water Lilies series was a prayer for salvation〉

I will expand my interpretation to this point and indulge in some wishful thinking.

Speaking of the Pure Land, there is Amitabha Buddha. If you chant the "Namu Amida Butsu" prayer, anyone can be welcomed by Amitabha Buddha from the Pure Land after death, meaning everyone can be saved. By single-mindedly chanting the prayer, one can focus their heart on Amitabha Buddha's original vow to save people -> Other-power (Tariki Hongan).

There is certainly that sense of "single-mindedness" in the water lily paintings. This is probably what is meant by exclusive chanting (Senju Nembutsu) in the Jodo sect and others. The fact that he filled the screen only with water, the sky reflected in the water, and water lilies, without including other plants or horizons, also has that element.

Amitabha Buddha comes, and the Pure Land is in the West. Giverny, the land where Monet built his Japanese garden at his own expense and spent his later years, is also located northwest of Paris. There must have been various favorable conditions, but could "West" also have been an important element...?

Compared to other series like "Haystacks," as he painted the water lilies, he zoomed in more and more, the individual leaves and flowers became larger, the shapes became more abstract, and there is certainly a feeling that his obsession with the situation is highlighted.

Water lilies are flowers that repeat opening and closing day and night. (The water lilies in Monet's garden were probably the type that bloom during the day?) I can certainly understand the purpose of wanting to specialize in the study of "light," but from the opposite perspective, one could see it as meaning "to be enlightened and born on a lotus pedestal, to be saved = an opened flower," so he only wanted to paint opened flowers. Then I realized he painted closed flowers too.

With himself, his late wife and children, and the First World War, the water lilies were Monet's prayer seeking salvation. Perhaps the pursuit of light was just a bonus. This theory itself is an inductive rationalization and just a self-indulgent delusion that cannot even be called a hypothesis, but perhaps Japanese people feel a sense of familiarity with that prayer without knowing it, and enjoy Monet like visiting a shrine or temple. Thinking about it that way, the popularity of Monet in Japan, especially the water lilies, might be inevitable.

There are many Buddhist arts that depict teachings and faith itself, such as mandalas, welcoming descent paintings (Raigo-zu), paintings of the six realms, and nembutsu scrolls, rather than just the nembutsu itself. But if we see Monet's water lilies as a nembutsu, there may be no other example of one person continuing to chant in the form of a painting to this extent! A "painted nembutsu" following the chanting nembutsu and dancing nembutsu.

As you know, Monet, who continued to paint water lilies and the Japanese garden even as he was losing his sight to cataracts, closed his 86-year life in Giverny in 1926. I wonder if he was able to depart for the Pure Land. If his prayer of the water lilies was answered, perhaps Camille, as a Bodhisattva, came to get him with the lotus pedestal for Monet to ride on.

And it seems the lotus flowers in Ueno are in full bloom right now! I want to go.

The end

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