Monet, Claude. Waterloo Bridge. Fog effect 1903

Эрмитаж

Oscar-Claude Monet /moʊ ˈ neɪ / was a founder and among the leaders of the French Impressionist movement at the end of the 19 century. His 1873 painting Impression, Sunrise gave the style its name. Inspired by the Realists' interest in painting in the open air, Monet brought this technique to his series paintings. He began to think in terms of colours and shapes. He used bright colours in dabs and dashes and squiggles of paint. The study of the effects of atmosphere were to evolve into a number of series of paintings in which Monet repeatedly painted the same subject in different lights, at different hours of the day, and through the changes of weather and season. In London he painted four series: the Houses of Parliament, London, Charing Cross Bridge, Waterloo Bridge. Masterful as a colorist and as a painter of light and atmosphere, his works achieved a remarkable degree of abstraction, focused purely on surface effects.

Waterloo bridge is one of a series of famous views of London created by Monet during the later Impressionist period. From his room in the Savoy Hotel, Monet had a view over the Thames towards Waterloo Bridge in foggy weather, which was completed in the artist's studio at Giverny. He concentrated mainly on rural landscapes. In his cycle of London works, the central motif was the fog, the marvellous way in which it changed light and air and the very atmosphere, literally swallowing up buildings.

When a viewer is close to this picture he sees nothing except thick oil dabs. When we gradually begin to move away from the canvas first semi-circles appear through the center of the picture, then outlines of the boats, and at the end we can observe the bridge and pinnacles.