Il Parlamento, cielo tempestoso

Monet came to London several times between 1899 and 1905 for one thing above all, the fog. It was not really weather. It was coal smoke, the exhaust of an industrial city of millions, and it wrapped everything along the Thames in coloured haze. From a terrace at St Thomas' Hospital he painted the Houses of Parliament over and over, the same Gothic silhouette dissolving in different light, in sun, in mist, and here under a heavy stormy sky. He rarely finished on the spot anymore. He would start many canvases in London, then carry them home to Giverny and rework them for months, even sending for photographs to check the towers. This stormy version is one of about 19 paintings he made of that single Parliament view.