London, the Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Opening in Fog

Monet came to London three times around 1900 and set up each afternoon on a terrace at St Thomas' Hospital, across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament, the Gothic building rebuilt only decades before after fire destroyed the old one in 1834. What he was really painting was the air. London then burned coal by the ton, and its famous fog hung thick with smoke that stained the light yellow, orange, sometimes violet. Monet loved it and said the city would not be beautiful without it. By this point he rarely finished a canvas on the spot. He carried them back to Giverny and reworked them for months, even sending to London for photographs to check the details. In 1904 he showed 37 of these Thames views together in Paris. Here the sun burns through the haze as a pale disc, and the towers of Parliament barely hold their shape behind it.