At the end of 1870, Claude Monet moved to London to escape the Franco-Prussian war. He was thirty at the time and stayed in London for several months. There he discovered the work of William Turner (1775-1851), especially the paintings the artist had bequeathed to the British nation, which were on show in the National Gallery. At the same period he probably visited the studio of James Whistler (1834-1903) and may well have seen the American artist�s earliest Nocturnes. As a very young man, on one of his first visits to London, Whistler, too, had been intrigued by Turner�s work. Monet may also have seen Whistler�s etchings of the Thames produced between 1859 and 1861 and published as a set in spring 1871. Whatever the case may be, the French artist painted three views of the Thames wreathed in fog during his stay.

The works of Turner and Whistler certainly had an influence, although it is hard to define, on the man who later became the prime mover of the Impressionist movement, especially on the famous Impression Sunrise (Paris, Mus�e Marmottan-Monet), a view of the Seine at Le Havre painted in 1872-1873, whose title, by derision, became the name of the new art movement. A steadfast friendship later developed between Whistler and Monet and they helped each other exhibit their works in London and Paris. Thanks to Monet, Parisians had an opportunity to see a collection of Whistler�s paintings, watercolours and pastels at the International Exhibition at the Georges Petit gallery in May-June 1887; and thanks to Whistler, Monet�s paintings were admired by Londoners at the Royal Society of British Artists in November-December of the same year.

Following the lead of Turner and Whistler, Monet tried to show what he called "fog effects" over the Thames and the Seine. Apart from the purely aesthetic side of his research, these paintings show the air pollution (often commented on by Monet�s contemporaries) caused by the clouds of smoke belching from factory chimneys. Monet returned to the same motif in an extraordinary way some twenty-five years later, when he stayed in London, indulging in real "painting binges" which were one of the high points of his oeuvre.

This exhibition - of about a hundred works - is an opportunity to study the relationship between Monet�s first paintings of the Thames, in 1871, and the "series" he painted in London in 1899, 1900 and 1901 (Charing Cross Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and Waterloo Bridge) in the light of many paintings, watercolours and etchings by Turner and Whistler. It also brings face to face works by the three painters in Venice, where Monet went in 1908: his views of the Grand Canal and the island of San Giorgio Maggiore have direct links with the views of London he had painted several years before.

The exhibition is presented in six sections:

I. The legacy of Turner: the Turner bequest and its influence (paintings and watercolours)

II. From Realism to Impressionism: early works by Whistler and Monet on the Thames and the Seine

III. From Impressionism to Symbolism: art and music in Whistler�s Nocturnes (and Whistler and Ruskin)

IV. Symbolism: art and poetry: the relationship between Mallarm�, Whistler and Monet (misty, vaporous landscapes)

V. Return to the Thames with Whistler and Monet: from the Savoy Hotel and St Thomas� Hospital

VI. Epilogue: Whistler and Monet in Turner�s footsteps in Venice: the last phase in the dialogue between the three artists (reference to Ruskin)

Discover the exhibition online (Available in french only)

Galeries nationales du Grand Palais
Square Jean Perrin entrance
75008 Paris
www.rmn.fr/galeriesnationalesdugrandpalais
Information: tel. + 33 (0)1 44 13 17 17


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