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拍品专文
Executed in 1901, Waterloo Bridge dates from Claude Monet’s famed series of trips to London at the turn of the Twentieth Century. Staying at the newly opened Savoy Hotel on Victoria Embankment, Monet could admire the Thames stretched before him, bathed in pale winter sun diffused through a dense atmosphere of mist mingled with coal smoke from domestic fires and industrial furnaces. From his hotel suite, he could look out to the right, where the Houses of Parliament rose impressively beyond the iron structure of Charing Cross railway bridge, and to his left, to the rhythmic arches of Waterloo Bridge, framed by a plethora of factory chimneys, complete with bellowing plumes of smoke, that lined the south banks of the river. These three landmarks became the principal subjects of Monet’s acclaimed views of London, as he transformed the city and its fog-filled skies into ethereal, near abstract visions at once timeless and modern. Within these atmospheric compositions, it is the motif of Waterloo Bridge that features most prevalently, and with their expansive skies and wide stretches of rippling water with shimmering light reflections, these works are among the most radical and varied within the series.
‘This goes further than painting,’ the art critic Arsène Alexandre described of the artist’s views of London. ‘It’s an enchantment of atmosphere and light. London appeared fantastic in its fogs of dream, coloured by the magic of the sun’ (quoted in G. Seiberling, Monet in London, exh. cat., High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 1988, p. 95). Monet was hypnotized by the refractions of sunlight through the enveloping mantles of smoke, mist, and fog that descended on the increasingly industrialised city, and his fascination with this interplay of light led him to develop a daily routine for his compositions, allowing him to exploit his three main themes to maximum effect. ‘In the morning, as Monet looked east, the light was behind Waterloo Bridge. Later in the day he painted the afternoon light picking out the columns which ornamented the bridge. As he followed the course of the sun, he looked toward Charing Cross Bridge and painted midday and afternoon effects… The views of the Houses of Parliament were done late in the day, with the effects of the sun setting and the light fading’ (ibid., p. 8).
Monet’s campaign of London works marked a pivotal return by the artist to depictions of bustling metropolitan life, a subject he had not engaged with in such an extensive manner since his acclaimed paintings of the Gare Saint Lazare almost two decades previously. His most recent work had focused largely on bucolic views of the French countryside, from his serene meditations of morning light on the Seine, to the rhythmic patterns of poplar trees along the banks of the river Epte, and the iconic profiles of the Meules or haystacks that were a common sight in the landscape surrounding his home at Giverny. Immersing himself in the urban modernity of the London cityscape, Monet’s studies of the Thames pushed him to the extremes of his artistic powers, testing the fundamental Impressionist tenet of capturing the ephemeral, fleeting effects of nature. He was obsessed with the mercurial nature of the weather in London, simultaneously fascinated and frustrated by its constant changes. He wrote to his wife, Alice, ‘I can’t tell you about this fantastic day. What marvellous things, but only lasting five minutes, it’s enough to drive you crazy’ (quoted in D. Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, Paris, 1985, vol. IV, letter 1593). As Monet quickly discovered, the sun could shine at one moment, transforming the Thames into a spectacle of sparkling gold reflections, before minutes later disappearing behind thick cloud or blocked out entirely as the infamous fogs descended. It was to these evanescent hazes of smoke and fog that Monet was most drawn, and his Vue de Londres series marked the fulfilment of his longstanding desire ‘to try to paint some effects of fog on the Thames’ (Monet, quoted in op. cit., p. 37).
Monet was not the first artist to seek to render the beguiling London fog, and James McNeill Whistler’s depictions of the Thames in the early 1870s had transformed the sometimes impenetrable smoke and fog into symphonic arrangements of colour. The pair were close acquaintances, and Monet was aware of Whistler’s contributions to the contemporary depiction of London, describing Whistler as having successfully captured ‘that mysterious cloak’ of London fog, which made ‘those regular, massive blocks [of the city] grandiose’ (quoted in P. Tucker, Monet in the ‘90s: The Series Paintings, exh. cat., The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1989, p. 266). By embarking on his series of London riverscapes, Monet was entering into an artistic lineage that included the art of the British master, J.M.W. Turner, whose work Monet had studied during his time in London in the 1870s, and continued to speak admiringly of, even years later. It would have been impossible for an artist – especially one so concerned with atmospheric effects of light and colour – not to have masterpieces such as Rain, Steam, and Speed—The Great Western Railway (1844, National Gallery, London) or The Burning of the House of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834 (1834-1835, Philadelphia Museum), in mind when beginning a series based around the Thames. ‘Few landscape painters in the history of art had been as inventive or as passionate, or had captured nature’s elusive ways with as much power and poetry… Turner, therefore, was a soulmate, a guide, and a special challenge for Monet. If one were going to be a truly great landscape painter, this was necessary business to settle’ (ibid., p. 267).
Upon arrival at the Savoy for his third London sojourn of the series, in January 1901, Monet found that his canvases and paints had yet to be delivered, and so, for the following week, the artist worked solely with pastel. Monet had used pastels to great effect from the earliest stages of his career as an artist, but acknowledged in his letters to Alice from London that he had drifted from the medium in recent years, ‘this amuses me a lot, even though I’m no longer accustomed to it, it occupies me and may be useful’ (quoted in Wildenstein, op. cit.,1985, vol. IV, letter 1589). His prediction was indeed an astute one, and in a letter to Alice just five days later, he wrote of the merits of the medium: ‘it’s thanks to my promptly made pastels that I can see how it should be done’ (quoted in ibid., letter 1591). Indeed, they were far more suited to capturing the capricious London light, as the artist could complete the work in far less time, creating a more immediate reflection of the ephemeral weather conditions.
Completing only twenty-six pastels during his stay in London in 1901, many of which are now held in museums and prestigious collections around the world, Monet later regretted not producing more such works: ‘this is not a country where you can finish a picture on the spot; the effects never reappear. I should have made just sketches, real impressions’ (quoted in D. Wildenstein, Monet, The Triumph of Impressionism, Cologne, 1999, p. 354). Waterloo Bridge exquisitely shows how Monet managed, as he surmised, to capture the strange London light by using speed of execution to his advantage. The gentle haze of the mist, punctuated by the rhythmic shadows of the bridge and relieved by the golden light that shimmers on the water, has been instantaneously rendered on paper, as Monet perfectly condenses the atmosphere and impression of this London scene.
Monet’s depictions of London hold a position of enduring acclaim amongst his oeuvre, and the lasting appeal of these evocative cityscapes was demonstrated by the Courtauld Gallery’s radical and groundbreaking sold-out 2024 exhibition, Monet and London: Views of the Thames. One of the Courtauld’s most popular shows of all time, the exhibition brought together the largest group of Monet’s Vues de la Tamise oil paintings since the 1904 public debut of the series at Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris. Monet had handpicked thirty-seven of his London works to be displayed at Galerie Durand-Ruel, and the show was an instant critical and commercial success, solidifying his status as one of the greatest artists of his day. Monet had wanted the series to be shown in London too, but the exhibition never materialised, and so it was in 2024, some one hundred and twenty years after he first intended, that his ambition for his London works to be displayed in the very city they depicted was finally fulfilled. The Courtauld brought together twenty-one of the works Monet had originally curated for the 1904 show, and once again, this dedicated exhibition of his views of London was met with great acclaim and admiration.
‘This goes further than painting,’ the art critic Arsène Alexandre described of the artist’s views of London. ‘It’s an enchantment of atmosphere and light. London appeared fantastic in its fogs of dream, coloured by the magic of the sun’ (quoted in G. Seiberling, Monet in London, exh. cat., High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 1988, p. 95). Monet was hypnotized by the refractions of sunlight through the enveloping mantles of smoke, mist, and fog that descended on the increasingly industrialised city, and his fascination with this interplay of light led him to develop a daily routine for his compositions, allowing him to exploit his three main themes to maximum effect. ‘In the morning, as Monet looked east, the light was behind Waterloo Bridge. Later in the day he painted the afternoon light picking out the columns which ornamented the bridge. As he followed the course of the sun, he looked toward Charing Cross Bridge and painted midday and afternoon effects… The views of the Houses of Parliament were done late in the day, with the effects of the sun setting and the light fading’ (ibid., p. 8).
Monet’s campaign of London works marked a pivotal return by the artist to depictions of bustling metropolitan life, a subject he had not engaged with in such an extensive manner since his acclaimed paintings of the Gare Saint Lazare almost two decades previously. His most recent work had focused largely on bucolic views of the French countryside, from his serene meditations of morning light on the Seine, to the rhythmic patterns of poplar trees along the banks of the river Epte, and the iconic profiles of the Meules or haystacks that were a common sight in the landscape surrounding his home at Giverny. Immersing himself in the urban modernity of the London cityscape, Monet’s studies of the Thames pushed him to the extremes of his artistic powers, testing the fundamental Impressionist tenet of capturing the ephemeral, fleeting effects of nature. He was obsessed with the mercurial nature of the weather in London, simultaneously fascinated and frustrated by its constant changes. He wrote to his wife, Alice, ‘I can’t tell you about this fantastic day. What marvellous things, but only lasting five minutes, it’s enough to drive you crazy’ (quoted in D. Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, Paris, 1985, vol. IV, letter 1593). As Monet quickly discovered, the sun could shine at one moment, transforming the Thames into a spectacle of sparkling gold reflections, before minutes later disappearing behind thick cloud or blocked out entirely as the infamous fogs descended. It was to these evanescent hazes of smoke and fog that Monet was most drawn, and his Vue de Londres series marked the fulfilment of his longstanding desire ‘to try to paint some effects of fog on the Thames’ (Monet, quoted in op. cit., p. 37).
Monet was not the first artist to seek to render the beguiling London fog, and James McNeill Whistler’s depictions of the Thames in the early 1870s had transformed the sometimes impenetrable smoke and fog into symphonic arrangements of colour. The pair were close acquaintances, and Monet was aware of Whistler’s contributions to the contemporary depiction of London, describing Whistler as having successfully captured ‘that mysterious cloak’ of London fog, which made ‘those regular, massive blocks [of the city] grandiose’ (quoted in P. Tucker, Monet in the ‘90s: The Series Paintings, exh. cat., The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1989, p. 266). By embarking on his series of London riverscapes, Monet was entering into an artistic lineage that included the art of the British master, J.M.W. Turner, whose work Monet had studied during his time in London in the 1870s, and continued to speak admiringly of, even years later. It would have been impossible for an artist – especially one so concerned with atmospheric effects of light and colour – not to have masterpieces such as Rain, Steam, and Speed—The Great Western Railway (1844, National Gallery, London) or The Burning of the House of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834 (1834-1835, Philadelphia Museum), in mind when beginning a series based around the Thames. ‘Few landscape painters in the history of art had been as inventive or as passionate, or had captured nature’s elusive ways with as much power and poetry… Turner, therefore, was a soulmate, a guide, and a special challenge for Monet. If one were going to be a truly great landscape painter, this was necessary business to settle’ (ibid., p. 267).
Upon arrival at the Savoy for his third London sojourn of the series, in January 1901, Monet found that his canvases and paints had yet to be delivered, and so, for the following week, the artist worked solely with pastel. Monet had used pastels to great effect from the earliest stages of his career as an artist, but acknowledged in his letters to Alice from London that he had drifted from the medium in recent years, ‘this amuses me a lot, even though I’m no longer accustomed to it, it occupies me and may be useful’ (quoted in Wildenstein, op. cit.,1985, vol. IV, letter 1589). His prediction was indeed an astute one, and in a letter to Alice just five days later, he wrote of the merits of the medium: ‘it’s thanks to my promptly made pastels that I can see how it should be done’ (quoted in ibid., letter 1591). Indeed, they were far more suited to capturing the capricious London light, as the artist could complete the work in far less time, creating a more immediate reflection of the ephemeral weather conditions.
Completing only twenty-six pastels during his stay in London in 1901, many of which are now held in museums and prestigious collections around the world, Monet later regretted not producing more such works: ‘this is not a country where you can finish a picture on the spot; the effects never reappear. I should have made just sketches, real impressions’ (quoted in D. Wildenstein, Monet, The Triumph of Impressionism, Cologne, 1999, p. 354). Waterloo Bridge exquisitely shows how Monet managed, as he surmised, to capture the strange London light by using speed of execution to his advantage. The gentle haze of the mist, punctuated by the rhythmic shadows of the bridge and relieved by the golden light that shimmers on the water, has been instantaneously rendered on paper, as Monet perfectly condenses the atmosphere and impression of this London scene.
Monet’s depictions of London hold a position of enduring acclaim amongst his oeuvre, and the lasting appeal of these evocative cityscapes was demonstrated by the Courtauld Gallery’s radical and groundbreaking sold-out 2024 exhibition, Monet and London: Views of the Thames. One of the Courtauld’s most popular shows of all time, the exhibition brought together the largest group of Monet’s Vues de la Tamise oil paintings since the 1904 public debut of the series at Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris. Monet had handpicked thirty-seven of his London works to be displayed at Galerie Durand-Ruel, and the show was an instant critical and commercial success, solidifying his status as one of the greatest artists of his day. Monet had wanted the series to be shown in London too, but the exhibition never materialised, and so it was in 2024, some one hundred and twenty years after he first intended, that his ambition for his London works to be displayed in the very city they depicted was finally fulfilled. The Courtauld brought together twenty-one of the works Monet had originally curated for the 1904 show, and once again, this dedicated exhibition of his views of London was met with great acclaim and admiration.