Monet’s London

last updated 8 January 2015

London at the turn of the last century was enveloped in a pervasive fog. Visiting French artist Claude Monet trained his view on the city's Houses of Parliament on the banks of the Thames and painted their spires in 'œsmoky atmospherics,' said Georgette Gouveia in the Westchester, N.Y., Journal'“News. It was a 'œmore personal, abstract style' for the celebrated impressionist, and once he exhibited his London pictures in 1904, he inspired other continental painters to come to London as well. In a 1903 version of Houses of Parliament, Effect of Fog, a sunset creates a high-contrast purple-and-orange glow, while in a 1904 painting of the same subject, the towers 'œrise like a phantom, enveloped in a milky lavender haze.'

The dark, hazy Thames visions of British artists J.M.W. Turner and James McNeill Whistler preceded Monet, however, said Lance Esplund in The New York Sun. London was the busiest port city in the West, and by the end of the 19th century it was full of factories, docks, bridges, and steamships. 'œIt was also filthy, smelly with raw sewage, and steaming with fog and smog,' which, paradoxically, led to Monet's famously pretty paintings. Today, the fluttery pastel brush strokes of impressionist paintings seem to be 'œcalming, almost nostalgic.' But in its day, they reflected 'œthe rapid speed, continual change, and anxiety of the modern city.'

It's exactly that sanitizing of difficult times that can make Monet's work difficult to swallow, said Mark Stevens in New York. 'œThe very idea of Monet sometimes makes me want to kick a golden retriever'; his aura and authority so heavily relies on 'œclotted clichÃ©s.' The industrial Thames didn't need to be so purplish. Whistler's paintings, for instance, display an 'œintense, descriptive realism.' Monet's vision is essentially that of the self-absorbed artist, an individual in search of his own idiosyncratic mood, which always overwhelms the visual evidence.