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ALBANY — Claude Monet had a special relationship with Giverny.

The Impressionist painter called the French country village beautiful and “a splendid spot.” And he said “my heart is to Giverny forever and ever.”

His devotion to Giverny was immortalized in his oils of the billowy haystacks, the narrow byways, the lily ponds and the flowery fields. But the picturesque landscape inspired more than exceptional paintings. It also kindled a colony of artists who flocked there from around the globe. The majority, 70 percent, were Americans — seeking to spark the same creative genius that infused Monet.

That cadre of 19th- and early 20th-century artists prompted an exhibition at the Musee d’Art Americain in Giverny that then traveled to the San Diego Museum of Art. The gathering of more than 100 international works, most pulled from the collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art, has since been trimmed down to 50 Impressionist paintings by Americans only.

They include landscapes and portraits by John Leslie Breck, Frederick MacMonnies, Willard Leroy Metcalf and Frederick Carl Frieseke. Titled “Impressionist Giverny: American Painters in France, 1885-1915,” the exhibition also features an oil by Albany native Will H. Low, making the exhibition a natural for its next stop, the Albany Institute of History & Art, where it will remain through early January.

“We have a wonderful French connection,” said Tammis Groft, chief curator at the museum. “In 1901, Will H. Low stayed in the Giverny cottage on the estate of Frederick MacMonnies and Mary Fairchild MacMonnies. And not only did he paint in Giverny, he wrote about his experiences, too. He was one of the few artists to write about Giverny.”

Low spent nine months in the French countryside, where he painted “The Terrace Wall,” a late-summer scene with a stone wall bisecting a waning flower garden and thinning trees in the distance.

Expecting crowds

The painting, owned by the Institute, was lent for the international showing and returns home for the exhibition, which is poised to inspire a flood of visitors to the Albany museum. Or so the Institute, which is hosting a series of lectures and special programs and has expanded its gift shop for the event, hopes.

It is likely, as Impressionism is wildly popular. And the Giverny paintings, said Groft, represents the movement’s most “idyllic time and location.” Giverny captured the artistic imagination with its rapidly changing weather, rolling hills and elegant fields. It was ideal for painting en plein air. Monet, like the others, probably journeyed there to paint the landscape and escape the chaos of Paris salons.

But Katie Bourguignon, the chief curator for the exhibition and associate curator at the Giverny museum, said no one knows for certain what led Monet to the village 40 miles northwest of Paris. They do know he moved there in 1883. Four years later, seven or eight other artists settled there. By 1890, more than 50 artists made Giverny their home. During the 30 years that the exhibition spans, Bourguignon said about 350 international artists lived in Giverny.

Center of creativity

Most stayed at the Hotel Baudy. It housed so many American and English artists that it took to serving Boston baked beans and afternoon tea. The Baudy family also hosted evening balls, tennis matches and spelling bees after mornings of painting and afternoons of group critiques.

Since the artists lived in tight quarters and enjoyed a lively camaraderie, they tended to follow each other’s leads.

“There were variations and anomalies, but mostly there was a clear development of style and subjects,” said Bourguignon. As she organized the exhibition, the motifs became pronounced and ultimately served as a linear guideline for the show.

The exhibition is divided into these four distinct subjects: landscapes, the earliest works; village life, the next phase; family and friends, a favorite subject with those entrenched in Giverny; and the final passage, the “Giverny Group,” which returned the painter to the outdoors, but with a more decorative approach.

The iconic image for the exhibition is Breck’s bright golden haystacks set against a cool sky of dissipating clouds and cultivated hill — similar to a landscape that Monet might have created.

Dawson Dawson-Watson’s 1888 oil “Giverny” — a winding road with a pedestrian, flanked by low-slung buildings — typifies Impressionism’s loose and cloudy definition as well as its interest in the village. The later period of Impressionism is exemplified by “Lady in the Garden,” by Frieseke. The colors are still broken and the brushstrokes, unrestrained. But the painting is heavy in detail.

Finally, the Low painting provides the museum an opportunity to spotlight his life and career. His illustrations, printed in such magazines as Scribner’s, as well as drawings, prints and photographs, supplement the main exhibition.

All in all, Bourguignon said the exhibition is a strong proof that American artists, including one from Albany, played a central role in Giverny and in the Impressionist movement.

“The Albany Institute is a very good fit,” said Bourguignon.

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