Claude Monet
1903
Oil on canvas
The fog (later called ‘smog’) that covered London in the nineteenth and early twentieth century was, to foreigners, one of its distinctive features. It took on a particular density and a variety of colours that occurred nowhere else, due to heavy industrialisation in the heart of the city. Claude Monet’s ambition was to render those unique effects on canvas. He famously declared, ‘I so love London! but I only love London in the winter … Without the fog, London wouldn’t be a beautiful city. It’s the fog that gives it its magnificent breadth. Its regular and massive blocks become grandiose within that mysterious cloak.’