Art Institute of Chicago

Charing Cross Bridge, London

Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926)

Date

1901

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

France

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

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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