Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Effect

Look closely at this misty scene and you will spot the Houses of Parliament in London, their towers rising like ghosts through a thick veil of fog. Claude Monet painted this in 1903 as part of a series showing the same building at different times of day and in changing weather. He was fascinated by London's famous fog, which softened every edge and turned the city into a dreamlike blur of color. Notice how the sunlight breaks through and dances on the river Thames in flickering touches of gold and orange.

Monet worked on these London paintings in an unusual way. He started them by the river but finished many of them later in his studio in France, working from memory and from several canvases at once. As a leader of the Impressionist movement, he cared less about painting exact details and more about capturing a fleeting moment of light and atmosphere. Here the building almost disappears into the haze, reminding us that for Monet the real subject was never the architecture itself but the ever shifting mood of the air around it.