The French painter Claude Monet gave rise to the impressionist period of art in the 19th century. Found in this style, among other attributes, is an accentuation of the passing of time and how light changes the qualities of objects on which it is reflected throughout different times of the day.
Monet spent extended periods of time on the balcony of the Savoy Hotel in London painting his now famous images of the Waterloo Bridge and Charing Cross Bridge. Using those paintings, John Thornes, an applied meteorology professor at Birmingham University, has been able to determine exactly which balconies Monet painted on throughout the freezing winters.
“So we know that Monet, in the mornings, used to work on the sun rising over Waterloo Bridge and then by midday, the sun was shining almost along the Thames looking to the south, looking over Charing Cross Bridge,” Thornes explained in an NPR interview. “And then he would go to St. Thomas’ Hospital in the afternoon and watch the sun setting over the Houses of Parliament.”
Thornes used solar geometry and the location of the sun, which is in the same location today as it was when Monet was there, to determine the painter’s positioning. He described the two angles used to come up with a conclusion. “One is to work out what we call the azimuth, which is this sort of compass direction between the Savoy and the sun,” he said. “And then the second angle is the angle of elevation, how high the sun is above the horizon. And from those two angles, we can work out exactly the date and time that Monet actually introduced the sun into his paintings.”
In addition to setting the record straight for Savoy Hotel guests who pay thousands to stay in Monet’s actual room, Thornes’ research delves into what the air quality was like before regulations were set in the 1950′s. Coal burning was the main contributor of the vast amount of smoke and sulfur dioxide filling the air in those days. Thornes even assumes the extended amount of time Monet spent on the balcony is a possible reason for the artist’s ill health.
“We’re very interested in is how the air quality has improved since those days,” he said. “So Monet’s London series is a sort of visual colored record of the London pea-soupers, as we now call them, and that’s before the days of observation. We’re hoping to sort of work backwards and work out what the actual smoke levels were to give the visibilities in Monet’s painting.”
Painting by Claude Monet via Wikipedia Commons.