Charing Cross Bridge, London
1901
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
65 × 92.2 cm (25 5/8 × 36 5/16 in.); Framed: 87 × 113.1 × 11.2 cm (34 1/4 × 44 1/2 × 4 3/8 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
16544
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Beginning in September 1899, Claude Monet made almost one hundred paintings of the river Thames in London. These works show only three different views—Charing Cross Bridge and Waterloo Bridge, both painted from the Savoy Hotel; and the Houses of Parliament, painted from Saint Thomas’s Hospital. In the smoggy, industrial city, Monet challenged himself to capture effects of light seen through a dense atmospheric screen. Beyond the rectilinear skeleton of Charing Cross Bridge—reminiscent of bridges...
About the Artist
Claude Monet · 1840–1926
Claude Monet, born Oscar-Claude Monet on November 14, 1840, in Paris and raised in Le Havre, Normandy, began his artistic journey as a successful teenage caricaturist. His formal training started at the Le Havre secondary school of the arts in 1851, where he received his first drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard. Around 1858, he met Eugène Boudin, who became his pivotal mentor, introducin...