By 1914, the noisy battles that marked the birth of the rebellious group of impressionist artists were long ago, and the young rebels who provoked them - those who had not yet left this world - turned into the gray-bearded patriarchs of French painting. Claude Monet, who turned 73, settled in Giverny, where he built his personal Garden of Eden with man-made ponds and selected lilies. French newspapers informed readers that the famous master had retired. And yet the newspapers were quick to write Monet off. Despite personal and world cataclysms, despite ill health, self-doubt and advanced age, the artist began to implement the most ambitious artistic project of his entire artistic career - a grandiose cycle of landscapes with water lilies.