Monet in London: Parliament, Bridges and Fog
Monet in London: nearly a hundred views of the Thames between Parliament, Waterloo Bridge and Charing Cross Bridge, from the Savoy Hotel to the 1904 exhibition.
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London · 1899–1904 · three motifs
Collections
Sources
FAQA first encounter in 1870–1871Before the series, London had already taught Monet to look into the fog
Claude Monet discovers London during the Franco-Prussian War. Arriving in September 1870 with Camille and their son, he remains there until May 1871. The National Gallery records five urban landscapes from this first stay: two views of parks, two of the Pool of London and
The Thames below Westminster
Two Londons to distinguish:
The 1870–1871 stay produced a few standalone views; the three campaigns from 1899 to 1901 launched the vast ensemble of the bridges and Parliament, taken up again until 1903–1904.
First scouting
The Thames, Westminster and the mist already appear as the elements of a modern landscape.
Methodical return
From the Savoy, Monet frames Charing Cross Bridge on the right and Waterloo Bridge on the left.
1900
Third viewpoint
Access to St Thomas allows him to paint Parliament from the opposite bank, at sunset.
| Two windows, a terrace, three directions | Understanding the geography immediately explains the logic of the series | Monet stays at the Savoy Hotel, on the north bank of the Thames. From his elevated rooms he overlooks the river. Charing Cross Bridge lies to the right; Waterloo Bridge to the left. For Parliament, he crosses over and works from a terrace at St Thomas's Hospital, situated opposite the Palace of Westminster. | Subject | Place of observation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direction and framing | Privileged moment | Dominant structure | Charing Cross Bridge | Window of the Savoy Hotel |
| To the right, downstream | Morning and midday | Railway bridge, trains, smoke and distant Parliament. | Waterloo Bridge | Window at the Savoy Hotel |
| To the left, upstream | Morning | Long horizontal, arches, chimneys and river traffic. | Parliament | St Thomas Terrace |
Late afternoon and sunset
Gothic silhouette, tower, sun and vertical reflections.
At Charing Cross, the rectilinear structure of the bridge remains visible while Parliament is reduced to a distant apparition.
A deliberately limited urban panorama
St Thomas
North Bank
Backlight
Clock time matters less than the duration of an effect
During his second stay, Monet works from the Savoy during the first part of the day, then heads to St Thomas in the afternoon to paint Parliament. The schedule sounds organized, but the weather makes it nearly impossible to repeat. A light effect can vanish in a few minutes; the canvas in progress must be swapped for another that matches the new light.
The bridges from the Savoy
The gaze travels from Waterloo to Charing Cross, guided by the state of the sky, the direction of the light, and the activity on the river.
Canvases in rotation
When the effect shifts, Monet sets aside one canvas to take up another. The supports function as an organized memory of the atmospheres.
Crossing to St Thomas
The relocation demands a second setup and a different framing, facing the Parliament.
Sunset
Silhouette and SunThe Gothic mass darkens while the sky and the Thames concentrate yellows, pinks, reds, violets or blues.
The serial method does not slow change: it allows Monet not to confuse several states of the sky on a single canvas.
The bridges measure traffic; Parliament measures the backlight
Waterloo Bridge: a great horizontal where industry, the river, and the reflections answer one another
Parliament: a dark mass transformed by the sky and its reflections
Charing Cross: the city in motion
The railway bridge brings trains, smoke and a sequence of piers that rhythm the river. In the Art Institute of Chicago painting, Parliament appears in the distance, like a ghostly silhouette. The museum juxtaposes the rectilinear skeleton of the bridge with the Japanese prints that Monet collected.
Waterloo: the laboratory of horizontals
Parliament: architecture as a screen
Viewed from St Thomas, the palace is not described stone by stone. Its dense silhouette allows the intensity of the sun behind the mist to be measured. The towers give the motif its identity, but the colour of the sky and water commands the painting.
The train
On Charing Cross, he introduces a brief duration and a smoke that extends the architecture.
The boats
Their small dark masses shift the eye and give the river its scale.
The Chimneys
They signal the industrial bank without turning the painting into a topographic inventory.
The towers
They hold the silhouette of Parliament together as the details fade.
The reflections
They stretch the colors vertically and lend the river an unsteady depth.
06
The Sun
As a disc or a diffuse glow, it reorganizes the values without altering the point of view.
Smog is not a single color
Mist transforms gray into purple, turquoise, pink, yellow, or orange
A city filtered, not erased
Coal pollution contributes greatly to London fog. Monet does not turn it into an explicit social subject, but he works within this industrial reality: factory smoke, trains, steamboats and humidity compose the atmospheric screen he observes.
The titles — grey weather, sun effect, veiled sun, fog — indicate less a general weather than a precise luminous state. They invite comparison. It is in moving from one canvas to another that the viewer grasps how an apparently fixed structure can change its presence.
To look at a reproduction:
check that the bridge remains legible without turning black, that the greys stay coloured, and that the reflections keep several temperatures.
Started on the spot, the canvases are developed together over several years
Monet knows that he cannot complete dozens of paintings in front of the motif, subject to such fleeting effects. In March 1901, he writes to Alice that he must limit himself to studies and sketches in order to take them up again later. On the second trip, he brings back eight crates—about eighty canvases. The number reveals less an ease than a continuous struggle against change.
First late campaign
From September to October, Charing Cross dominates the work; the first views of Waterloo probably began.
The complete arrangement
From February 9 to April 5, Monet pairs the two bridges of the Savoy with Parliament, viewed from St Thomas.
Comparison in Giverny
The paintings are resumed side by side. Monet affirms that he must have them all before him, and works on them together.
1904
Durand-Ruel
Thirty-seven views of the Thames are presented in Paris. The exhibition turns the hanging into a demonstration of the serial method.
The date inscribed on a canvas can therefore correspond to its completion rather than to its first London session. A painting dated 1903 may have been installed in 1900 or 1901. This twofold temporality — rapid observation followed by slow maturation — corrects the idea of a fully improvised Impressionism.
The Art Institute has also shown, through technical examinations, that Monet moved or softened elements. In a view of Charing Cross, the piers, Parliament and the bank were reorganized; a more descriptive panorama became a fog envelope. The studio does not erase the observation: it builds its coherence from it.
Compare the three London families in the shop
Each link leads to an active product. These five works take you from the pink of Parliament to the vapors of Charing Cross and the variations of Waterloo Bridge.
Parliament · pink harmonyA Gothic silhouette wrapped in warm, soft, almost suspended light.
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Charing Cross · railway bridgeThe rhythm of the piers, the smoke, and the distant Parliament united in a panoramic framing.
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Waterloo · diffuse lightA balanced version where the bridge remains legible without interrupting the atmospheric softness.
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Parliament · backlit
A dark mass and warm reflections for a more intense focal point.
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Waterloo · solar discThe sun in the fog
The most atmospheric motif, where a pinpoint light organizes the river and the bank.
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Six major collections from the shop
Quantities were verified in the catalog on July 14, 2026.
59 worksClaude Monet London
Bridges, the Thames and Parliament united in their variations of mist and light.
12 worksParliament of London
The series of backlit views from St Thomas, from blue to the red of sunset.
1,027 artworksClaude Monet
Compare London with the Haystacks, the Cathedrals, Giverny, and the Water Lilies.
5,060 artworksImpressionism
Discover the light research led by Monet and his contemporaries.
479 worksJ. M. W. Turner
Explore another British language of steam, river, industry, and light.
1,679 works
Famous paintings
Great museum images to compare by artist, format and atmosphere.
Four references to verify dates, locations and method
This guide focuses on museum records and a scholarly catalogue dedicated to London works.
Art Institute of Chicago · catalogueThe London Campaigns
Three trips, nearly a hundred canvases, more than twenty-five pastels, viewpoints and technical analyses.
Art Institute of Chicago · 1901Charing Cross Bridge
The railway bridge, the influence of Japanese prints, and the distant Parliament.
Metropolitan Museum of ArtHouses of Parliament, Fog Effect
Revisits of the motif until 1903, collective development of the canvases, and exhibition of thirty-seven views in 1904.
National Gallery, London
The Thames in 1871
The first stay, the five urban views and the beginnings of the interest in Westminster in the mist.
Ten precise answers
Frequently asked questions about Monet in London
When did Monet paint his great London series?
He led three campaigns between autumn 1899 and spring 1901, then resumed and completed many canvases at Giverny through 1903–1904.
How many London views did Monet produce?
The late project includes nearly one hundred oils and more than twenty-five pastels, distributed mainly among Charing Cross Bridge, Waterloo Bridge, and the Parliament.
From where did Monet paint the bridges?
He observed Charing Cross Bridge and Waterloo Bridge from his elevated rooms at the Savoy Hotel, on the north bank of the Thames.
Where did he paint Parliament from?
From a terrace at St Thomas’s Hospital, on the opposite bank, facing the Palace of Westminster and often in the late afternoon.
What is the difference between Waterloo and Charing Cross?
Waterloo Bridge stood to the left from the Savoy and served mainly as a morning subject. Charing Cross, on the right, is a railway bridge animated by trains and their smoke.
Why did Monet paint so many canvases in parallel?
The quality of light changed too quickly. He moved from one support to the next in order to preserve, separately, the different states of the sky, the mist and the river.
Were the paintings finished in London?
Many were started on site and then reworked at length in Giverny. Monet said he needed to see them all together in order to develop them.
How many views were exhibited in 1904?
Thirty-seven Thames paintings were exhibited at the Durand-Ruel gallery in Paris, revealing the coherence of the series.
Was Monet's fog natural?
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