Magic eye
Monet pulls off a spectacular conjuring trick in his 19 paintings of London’s Houses of Parliament. It’s as if the bricks and mortar are dissolving into air, or – more specifically – fog.
Dirty old town
He had first warmed to the London fog’s unique properties when living in self-imposed exile during the Franco-Prussian war. “There are black, brown, yellow, green, purple fogs,” he once enthused.
New look
The impressionists were outdoorsy radicals, painting the effects of light rather than staged religious or historical scenes.
Outside in
Monet began his Westminster paintings on the terrace of St Thomas’ Hospital, across the water. Counter to his pioneering en plein air approach, however, they were completed, with the aid of memory and photos, at his Giverny studio.
The ferryman
Adding to the otherworldly feel, the boatman in some of the canvases could be ferrying people across the Styx.
Part of Impressionists in London, Tate Britain, SW1, to 7 May
