A Painting Led Us There: Bordighera, Italy

Much of North America is locked in a dire, deep winter. Some of you in the southern hemisphere are enduring blistering temperatures and wildfires.

This is when we pull out the map or the old travel photos or flip through the art books in search of some idyllic respite. One infallibly inspirational artist I rely on is Claude Monet. In his long career, he painted a wide variety of subjects and settings. Invariably he had a gift for portraying light, and his paintings make us wish we could stand THERE, right where he stood.

Bordighera by Claude Monet, 1884

That painting, “Bordighera,” from 1884, depicts a town on the Ligurian coast of Italy where Monet lived for a time.

It’s raining, thundering, lightning in southern California today, so let’s go to Bordighera for some halcyon, sunny days. Let’s stand where Monet stood, and see if we can find the light he saw.

Bordighera was a popular seaside resort in Monet’s era, as it is today. On a trip some years ago, we determined we’d make Bordighera one of our stops, inspired to see that landscape suffused with light the old master painted a number of times.

The Town

There are about 10,000 people in Bordighera, although the population swells during the tourist season. It still has something of the rather staid, respectable seaside resort character it’s had since the Edwardian era.

Steep hills climb up from the coast, and the Medieval old town occupies a prominent position above the traffic and bustle of shops and stores. That’s the scene Monet painted from up in the hills, and you can still see a similar view today. Not quite the way he saw it in the painting above, but it’s there under the Mediterranean sun.

To get there, you climb up into the old city and wend your way through the streets and piazzas, along old brick and stone lanes.

The Painters

Bordighera takes note of its heritage as a venue favored by Monet and other painters.

As you walk the tree-shaded streets, you’ll encounter signs depicting paintings from about the spot Monet and other artists painted them. You have the opportunity to compare the view with that of 140 years ago.

Here, painted from down in the “new” town, looking up at the old one, is Monet’s “Moreno Gardens at Bordighera” — Jardin Moreno à Bordighera — and its present-day appearance.

Is that what Monet saw? One never knows to what extent an artist like Monet was recording and what he was inventing. That’s part of the fun. He was determined to give us his impression of the place.

Bordighera’s resort accommodations then and now included expansive villas. We stayed in one, Villa Elisa, located with a number of the vacation venues along the Via Romana a quarter-mile uphill from the coast.

Monet painted the scene in a day before automobiles. Whether or not differences in landscaping gave him the following view of the surrounding hills is impossible to say. He wasn’t making photographs, after all; he was painting an impression.

Bordighera won’t be to every traveler’s taste, but it offers a variety of experiences ranging from ancient architecture and a fading way of life in an ancient hilltop town to a spectacularly lively and stunningly lovely stretch of beach.

At night, wander the old town, where restaurants that feature the local seafood are tucked into the piazzas.

In addition to the town’s shops and stores, the strikingly beautiful beach, there’s a lovely park, Piazza de Amicis, occupying a former fortress, with lovely shaded walks overlooking the Mediterranean.

Drawn there by the master’s hand and eye, we found the light shining down on Bordighera. We stood where he stood, and — a long time after he was there — saw what he saw.

It’s important to look … to see.

Stop, breathe. The light is shining down. What do you see?

Have you made a pilgrimage to a place made famous in a work of art? Leave a comment.

For more about Bordighera, see “To the Ligurian Coast: Bordighera” at this link.

40 km to the east is the charming, ancient city of Villefranche-sur-Mer at this link.

© Brad Nixon 2019. Some photographs © M. Vincent 2019, used by kind permission. Bordighera by Claude Monet © the Art Institute of Chicago. Jardin Moreno à Bordighera by Claude Monet © The Norton Gallery and School of Art. Villas à Bordighera by Claude Monet © Santa Barbara Museum of Art.