Monet’s views of London from his hotel balcony overlooking the Thames towards the Houses of Parliament were realised over three extended trips to London in 1899, 1900 and 1901. He brought back to Paris over 100 canvases, all unfinished. Over the following years, he worked on a special group of 37 paintings called Views of the Thames in his studio in Giverny. These were unveiled at the Durand-Ruel Gallery in Paris in 1904 and were met with huge acclaim. His dream was to recreate the exhibition in London the following year, but the plans fell through.
Some 120 years later, The Courtauld Gallery has assembled a selection of these works to give a clear picture of the London series, initially conceived by Monet – eighteen from the 1904 Paris exhibition and another three.
Monet’s paintings focus on three sites along the Thames: Charing Cross Bridge, Waterloo Bridge and the Houses of Parliament. From mid-September to early November 1899, Monet stayed at the Savoy Hotel in two rooms on the sixth floor, one for himself and the one to be used as his studio. When he returned in February 1900, he was offered the two rooms directly below his previous sixth floor rooms. These rooms are now part of the fifth floor Royal Suite. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to be shown this room and look out the window to see the same view that Monet had taken. Of course, it has changed a lot, with the main focus now being the London Eye and the vast new developments at Nine Elms, but the expanse of sky and the changing light are still enthralling. However, it was the mix of light and industrial fumes that fascinated Monet, particularly the fog and sunlight mixed with the smoke belching from the coal-burning factories on the industrial south bank and the steamboats that crisscrossed the river. These smoke and steam emissions created a thick winter fog. Monet described the fog as assuming all sorts of colours, ‘there are black, brown, yellow, green, purple fogs and the interest in paintings is to get the objects as seen through all these fogs’.
All these colours are present in his paintings.
In the late afternoons, he would move to the grounds of St Thomas’ Hospital, where he would get a better view of the Houses of Parliament. This series is the most astounding. The changes in light, depth of the fog, and sunlight reflections on the water are painted with such loving care and attention.
This intimate two-room exhibition is extraordinary not only because of the repetitive views embracing the subtle changes of light effects that show Monet’s mastery but also because of the feat of reuniting these paintings from so many major institutions worldwide – Denver, Dublin, Cardiff, Chicago, Copenhagen, Florida, Harvard, Lyon, National Trust Collections, New York, Ottawa, Paris, Philadelphia, Zurich etc
London has never looked so appealing. Yet it was the heavy industrial fumes that caused the fog, a significant concern in today’s awareness of the consequences of fossil fumes on the planet and human health. On 4 March 1900, Monet wrote to his wife, Alice Monet:’ Upon getting up, I was terrified to see that there was no fog, not even the hint of mist; I was devastated and already seeing my canvases ruined, but little by little, with the fires lighting up, smoke and mist returned’.
Monet found Sundays when the factories lay still uninspiring. ‘What a sad day is the damned English Sunday, nature feels its effects, everything seems dead, not a train, no smoke nor boats, nothing that stimulates the imagination’.
On occasion, he was able to find beauty in the reflections on the water created by the pure sun on quiet Sundays. ‘As always on Sundays not a hint of haze, it was even of a horrendous clarity, then the sun came up, so blinding that one could not look at it. The Thames was pure gold. God, it was so beautiful, so much that I frantically got to work following the sun and its reflections on the water.’
Of all the London bridges, I have a fondness for Waterloo Bridge. I have memories of rainy Saturday afternoons on television when there was always a classic black-and-white film on. The 1940 film Waterloo Bridge, starring Vivian Leigh and Robert Taylor, has the leading couple meet and fall in love on the bridge during an air raid and follows their doomed relationship. It’s a real weepy film and has always stuck in my mind. Monet’s depiction of the bridge only adds to the sentiment, notably Waterloo Bridge, Effect of Sunlight in the Fog, dated 1903, now in the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
The body of work is a reminder of Monet’s modernity. His series paintings, from the haystacks, to Rouen Cathedral, poplars and waterlilies, all display his love of colour, brushstroke, light and subject matter. Yet, the London series show the story of a changing industrialised city bathed in an unhealthy yet captivating light.
The Griffin Catalyst Exhibition: Monet and London. Views of The Thames, The Courtauld Gallery, 27 September 2024 – 19 January 2025
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