Charing Cross Bridge, London

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

Beginning in September 1899, Claude Monet made almost one hundred paintings of the river Thames in London . These works show only three different views—Charing Cross Bridge and Waterloo Bridge, both painted from the Savoy Hotel; and the Houses of Parliament, painted from Saint Thomas’s Hospital. In the smoggy, industrial city, Monet challenged himself to capture effects of light seen through a dense atmospheric screen. Beyond the rectilinear skeleton of Charing Cross Bridge—reminiscent of bridges in Japanese prints, which the artist collected—rises the ghostlike silhouette of the Houses of Parliament.

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