Oscar-Claude Monet was the most important founder of the art movement in the 19th century, and some scientists now think that the evolution of the French artist was greatly affected by air pollution.
At the beginning of his career, Monet painted cities and landscapes that contrast sharply with the sky. As the fall of the Industrial Revolution began to take hold, the artist’s imagination expanded and his palette became grayer.
Climate scientists have now shown that the changes are similar to what the atmosphere was like back then. The research was led by Anna Lea Albright of Sorbonne University in Paris and Peter Huybers of Harvard University.
“Our main point is that Impressionism – as it was created in the works of Turner, Monet, and others – has real elements of contamination,” the authors wrote.
To describe the entire length of the Industrial Revolution and the period that followed, researchers focused on two artists who were the most successful landscape painters of the 19th century: Monet and his successor, the British painter Joseph Mallord William Turner .
Air pollution is caused by the accumulation of small toxic particles suspended in the air. During the French Revolution, most of the smoke came from coal plants.
Because soot particles can absorb and scatter sunlight, air pollution can distort colors and darken edges when viewed from a distance. Today’s images of polluted skies, for example, show 19 percent less contrast than clear images.
Applying this analytical method to the maps has now allowed researchers to predict the amount of variation to be expected in coal emissions.
For Monet, the authors looked at 38 paintings created between 1864 and 1901. For Turner, they looked at 60 oil paintings created between 1796 and 1850.
“Throughout Turner’s work, a progression can be seen from the sharp to the vivid, saturated with pastel-like color, and figurative to abstract,” the authors wrote.
“A similar progression is evident in Monet’s works.”
While many of Turner’s paintings depict England, Monet’s paintings that researchers see are of Paris and London. The coal-mining history of both cities accompanies the artist to the scenic route.
The low contrast that Monet used later in his work, for example, corresponds to the high air in London at the end of the 19th century.
In early Monet paintings, visibility is about 24 kilometers (15 miles). But in Monet’s daytime paintings in London, visibility is only about 6 kilometers.
His pictures of Charing Cross Bridge are unremarkable. They are visible about 1 kilometer. This may sound extreme, but during the ‘London Fog’, one study reported that the winter in 1901 was no more than 2 kilometers.
There is a good chance that Monet painted quickly during his smoking days. His letters detail recording sessions in 1900 that coincide with daily weather reports of low winds and precipitation — conditions associated with air pollution.
Monet also wrote, “what I love most about London is the fog,” and “when I woke up I was horrified to see that there was no fog, not even mist: I fell to the ground, just to see. I made all my paintings, but little by little the fire was lit and the smoke and fog returned .”
It is clear, Albright and Huybers argue that environmental change is created in art, even if the change is not initiated by humans.
Turner, for example, developed a variety of sunsets in the years following the eruption of the Tambora volcano in 1815, which produced large amounts of particles that reddened the sky.
The authors wrote: “Indeed, the 19th century art critic, John Ruskin, wrote of Turner’s work that ‘it was as fashionable when I was young as it is now, there is no book like ‘Modern Painters ‘ which would be written. ‘.
“The same can be said of many other artists, too. The modern example that the researchers have created together is more work than Monet and Turner.
Albright and Huybers also made good use of the work of Gustave Caillebotte (1848 to 1894), Camille Pissarro (1830 to 1903), Berthe Morisot (1841 to 1895), and James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903).
This is not to say that air pollution can explain the history of artists, but it does seem to be a major motivation for many.
Artists like Edgar Degas, for example, could paint with hazier paint as their eyes weakened over time. But Monet began painting in imitation many years before he developed cataracts. Air pollution may have affected his style more than age.
“Our view is that visual art that captures natural phenomena—as opposed to imagined, integrated, or imagined—doesn’t diminish its value,” the authors concluded.
“In fact, it shows the connection between nature and art. “A connection that continues to this day.
This study was published in PNAS.
