Claude Monet
1904
Oil on canvas
81.5 x 92.5 cm
Claude Monet always painted the Houses of Parliament in the late afternoon as he particularly loved rendering the sun setting behind its towers. He despaired on foggy evenings, which disrupted his plans for a dramatic composition. He wrote to his wife, Alice, ‘Here, very fine weather today and, a rare thing, sunshine, and, as I thought, the sun is already setting very far from the place that I had dreamed of having it set in a huge ball of fire behind the Parliament.’ This painting and others bring to mind the loose brushwork and dramatic effects in works by J.M.W. Turner, whom Monet admired but never claimed as an influence.