'Houses of Parliament, Sunset' by Claude Monet (1913) (Photo credit: Active Museum/Active Art/Alamy Stock Photo)
Impressionists like Claude Monet and JMW Turner are famous for their misty, magical works. But new research suggests that what these European artists were actually depicting in their works was not fantasy, but an environmental disaster: air pollution.
Researchers analyzed nearly 100 works of art by the two prominent Impressionists, who dominated the art scene from the mid-18th to early 20th centuries during the Industrial Revolution. The team found that what some art lovers had long thought was the painting style of Monet and Turner was actually their “reflection on changes in the optical environment” associated with worsening air quality as coal-fired factories began to fill European cities and spew pollutants into the atmosphere, according to a study published Jan. 31 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“It is often noted that Turner was born in the age of sail and ended his life in the age of steam and coal — his life spanned a period of unprecedented environmental change,” first author Anna Lee Albright, an atmospheric scientist at the Laboratory of Dynamic Meteorology in France, told Live Science in an email. “During the first industrial revolution, these significant increases in air pollution were concentrated in London, which was known as the ‘Big Smoke’ [where Turner lived]. Monet painted later, during the second industrial revolution, in London and Paris.”
In their study, the researchers focused on local levels of sulfur dioxide emissions in London and Paris during this historical period, as well as the ways in which atmospheric pollution interacts with light, such as by reducing the contrast of objects against the background and increasing the intensity, or “whiteness,” of an image, according to the study.
They also found that the artists’ visual ability was not the cause of this trend toward blurrier artwork. “Monet was not myopic; Turner did not have cataracts,” another group of researchers wrote in a 2016 study published in the journal Eye.
“Throughout the careers of Turner and Monet, I noticed that the edges of their paintings became blurrier, the palette seemed lighter, and the style changed from more figurative to more impressionistic,” Albright said. “We knew that Turner and Monet were creating their work during the Industrial Revolution, with its unprecedented environmental changes. Their stylistic transformations matched physical expectations of how air pollution affects light.”
Air Pollution by Impressionists
Air pollution occurs when toxic microscopic particles increase in the atmosphere. Scientists have compared air pollution in Paris and London during the Industrial Revolution with levels seen in modern megacities such as Beijing, New Delhi and Mexico City.
“Air pollution absorbs and scatters light, causing distant objects to appear blurrier,” Albright explained. “By scattering background light of all wavelengths across the field of view, air pollution gives images a whiter cast.”
These misty, polluted scenes later found their way into some of Monet and Turner's most famous works, including Monet's The Houses of Parliament, Sunset (1903) and Turner's Rain, Steam and Speed: The Great Western Railway (1844).
“Impressionism is often contrasted with realism, but our results highlight that Turner and Monet’s work also reflects a certain reality,” study co-author Peter Huybers, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University, told Live Science in an email. “In particular, Turner and Monet appear to have realistically depicted how sunlight passes through pollution and clouds.”
Sourse: www.livescience.com
