Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. Durin ...
painted a
series
Series may refer to:
People with the name
* Caroline Series (born 1951), English mathematician, daughter of George Series
* George Series (1920–1995), English physicist
Arts, entertainment, and media
Music
* Series, the ordered sets used in ...
British Parliament
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...
, in the autumn of 1899 and the early months of 1900 and 1901 during stays in London. All of the series' paintings share the same viewpoint from Monet's window or a terrace at St Thomas' Hospital overlooking the
Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
and the approximate canvas size of 81 cm × 92 cm (32 in × 36 3/8 in). They are, however, painted during different times of the day and weather conditions.
By the time of the ''Houses of Parliament'' series, Monet had abandoned his earlier practice of completing a painting on the spot in front of the motif. He carried on refining the images back home in
, France, and sent to London for photographs to help in this. This caused some adverse reaction, but Monet's reply was that his means of creating a work was his own business and it was up to the viewer to judge the final result.
Gallery
Some of the 19 known paintings in the ''Houses of Parliament'' series:
File:Claude Monet, Houses of Parliament, London, 1900-1903, 1933.1164, Art Institute of Chicago.jpg, ''Houses of Parliament, London,'' 1900–1901 The Art Institute of Chicago
Image:Monet Houses of Parliament, Sunset.jpg, ''Parlement, coucher du soleil'' (sunset), 1902, private collection
Image:Brouillard, London Parliament, Claude Monet.jpg, ''Le Parlement, Effet de Brouillard'', 1903,
Museum of Fine Arts (St. Petersburg, Florida)
History
The MFA was founded by art collector and philanthropist Margaret Acheson Stuart (1896–1980). The Margaret Acheson Stuart Society, the Museum's independent support organization, is named in her honor.
The city provided the four-a ...
File:Houses of Parliament in the Fog by Claude Monet, High Museum of Art.jpg, ''Houses of Parliament in the Fog'', 1903,
High Museum of Art
The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...
File:Monet, Claude, Houses of Parliament, Seagulls.jpg, ''The Houses of Parliament, Seagulls'', 1903,
Princeton University Art Museum
The Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) is the Princeton University gallery of art, located in Princeton, New Jersey. With a collecting history that began in 1755, the museum was formally established in 1882, and now houses over 113,000 works o ...
File:Claude Monet - The Houses of Parliament, Sunset.jpg, ''The Houses of Parliament, Sunset'', 1903, National Gallery of ArtWashington, DC.
File:Brooklyn Museum - Houses of Parliament Sunlight Effect (Le Parlement effet de soleil) - Claude Monet.jpg, ''Houses of Parliament Sunlight Effect (Le Parlement effet de soleil),'' 1903, Brooklyn Museum
File:The Houses of Parliament (Effect of Fog).JPG, ''The Houses of Parliament (Effect of Fog)'', 1903–1904,
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
Image:London, the Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Opening in Fog, by Claude Monet.jpg, ''Trouée de soleil dans le brouillard'' (Sun Breaking Through the Fog) Houses of Parliament, 1904. London, Sun Breaking Through the Fog, 1904 Musée d'Orsay,
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
Lille, France
Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the Nord ...
File:Claude Monet - Le Parlement, coucher de soleil.jpg, ''Houses of Parliament, London,'' ca. 1904,
Kunsthaus Zürich
The Kunsthaus Zürich is in terms of area the biggest art museum of Switzerland and houses one of the most important art collections in Switzerland, assembled over the years by the local art association called '. The collection spans from the Midd ...
File:Seagulls, the Thames & Houses of Parliament by Claude Monet, Pushkin Museum.JPG, ''Seagulls, the River Thames and the Houses of Parliament'', 1904, Pushkin Museum
File:Claude Monet, Londres, Le Parlement, Reflets sur la Tamise, 1905, huile sur toile, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris.jpg, ''Houses of Parliament, London,''
Musée Marmottan Monet
Musée Marmottan Monet ( en, Marmottan Museum of Monet) is an art museum in Paris, France, dedicated to artist Claude Monet. The collection features over three hundred Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings by Claude Monet, including his 1 ...
, 1905
File:Palace of Westminster, London - Feb 2007.jpg, Modern view of the Houses of Parliament at dusk in an approximately identical angle. The paintings were framed to exclusively depict the leftmost half of the building, with
Victoria Tower
The Victoria Tower is a square tower at the south-west end of the Palace of Westminster in London, adjacent to Black Rod's Garden on the west and Old Palace Yard on the east. At , it is slightly taller than the Elizabeth Tower (formerly known ...
as the focal point.
Context
Under exile during the Franco-Prussian War, Monet travelled to London for the first time in 1870. Monet became enthralled with the city, and vowed to return to it someday. Monet's fascination with London lay primarily in its fogs, a byproduct of the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
. But writers hypothesize that Monet was also inspired by contemporaries J. M. W. Turner and
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...
, who were similarly fascinated by London's atmosphere and atmospheric effects in general. Thus, in 1899, Monet returned to London and rented a room in the
Savoy Hotel
The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August ...
, which offered an extensive viewpoint from which to begin his series of the city.
Between 1899 and 1905 Monet periodically travelled to London to paint. In addition to the ''Houses of Parliament'' paintings, Monet created other paintings of the city's sights, including the Charing Cross Bridge series and Waterloo Bridge series. While Monet began all of the paintings in London, he completed many of them in his studio in
. As a result, some critics question whether the paintings are completely accurate. On the other hand, recent analyses of solar positioning report that Monet's paintings "contain elements of accurate observation and may potentially be considered as a proxy indicator for the Victorian smogs and atmospheric states they depict."
Public display
''Impressionists in London''
In 2018 the
Tate Britain
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
in London exhibited six paintings of the series, together in a single room, for the duration of a temporary exhibition titled ''Impressionists in London, French artists in exile (1870–1904)'', devoted to the temporary exile of French and impressionist artists in London during the Franco-Prussian War. This was a rare occurrence because no museum owns or exhibits more than two in a permanent collection.
The paintings were also shown at the
Petit Palais
The Petit Palais (; en, Small Palace) is an art museum in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France.
Built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle ("universal exhibition"), it now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts (''Musée des beaux-arts ...
when the temporary exhibition travelled from London to Paris.
The six paintings were the examples from the following collections:
* Art Institute of Chicago
* Brooklyn Museum
* Kaiser Wilhelm Museum
*
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...
in London exhibited three paintings of the series, together in a single room, for the duration of a temporary exhibition titled ''Monet & Architecture'', devoted to
Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. Durin ...
's use of architecture as a means to structure and enliven his art. This was a rare occurrence because no museum owns or exhibits more than two in a permanent collection.
The three paintings exhibited were the examples from the following collections:
* Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg
*
Kunsthaus Zürich
The Kunsthaus Zürich is in terms of area the biggest art museum of Switzerland and houses one of the most important art collections in Switzerland, assembled over the years by the local art association called '. The collection spans from the Midd ...