In Monet’s Impressionist paintings, that dreamy haze is air pollution, study says
Then, he writes in translated letters shared by the Tate art museum, fires were gradually lit, and smoke and a haze of industrial pollution returned to the air. His work continued.
A new study, published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analyzed changes in style and color in nearly 100 paintings by Impressionist painters Monet and Joseph Mallord William (JMW) Turner, who painted during Western Europe’s Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries. The study found that over time, as industrial air pollution increased throughout Turner’s and Monet’s careers, the air in their paintings also became hazier.
“Impressionist painters are known to be extremely sensitive to changes in light and changes in the environment,” said atmospheric scientist Anna Lea Albright, lead author of the study. “It makes sense that they would be very sensitive to not only kinds of natural changes in the environment, but also human-made changes.”
The early Industrial Revolution changed the lives and air of London and Paris, the painters’ hometowns, in unprecedented ways. Coal-burning factories increased jobs, but clouded the atmosphere with harmful pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide.
Much of the change is evident in the United Kingdom, which emitted almost half of global sulfur dioxide emissions from 1800-1850; London was responsible for around 10 percent of the UK’s emissions. Paris industrialized more slowly, but still saw noticeable increases in atmospheric sulfur dioxide after 1850.
Air pollution can significantly change the appearance of landscapes, in ways that are visible to the naked eye. Aerosols can both absorb and scatter radiation from the sun. Scattering of radiation reduces the contrast between different objects, making them blend in more. They also scatter visible light of all wavelengths, resulting in whiter shades and more intense light during the day.
Turner, one of Britain’s most prolific painters, witnessed the dramatic developments firsthand in his lifetime – he was born in the age of sail in 1775 and died in the age of steam and coal in 1851.
In one of his most famous works, “Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway,” he paints a train, at the time the latest engineering marvel that allowed people to travel at unprecedented speeds, about to run over a rabbit to chase, Britain’s fastest land mammal. However, details in the painting can be almost difficult to discern – haze and fog obscure much of the painting, an underscoring of the growing air pollution.
The blur in this painting was also not a fluke or one-time occurrence, according to the study. The team examined 60 paintings by Turner from 1796 to 1850 and 38 paintings by Monet from 1864 to 1901. Using a mathematical model, they looked at how sharply the outlines of objects compared to the background; less contrast meant murkier conditions. They also looked at the intensity of the haze by measuring the level of whiteness; whiter shades generally indicate more intense haze.
Researchers found that about 61 percent of the contrast changes in the paintings were largely due to increasing sulfur dioxide concentrations during that period. (They also found a trend in whiter shades, but they put less emphasis on these results since pigments in the paintings themselves could have faded over time.)
The visual transformations are sharp.
In Turner’s “Apullia in Search of Appullus,” which he painted in 1814, sharper edges and a clear sky are easily discernible. In “Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway” painted 30 years later, hazy skies dominate. During that time, sulfur dioxide emissions more than doubled.
The beginning of Monet’s career is also different from its end. His “Sainte-Adresse” in 1867 contrasts sharply with his “Houses of Parliament” series which began around 1899, when he spent several months on and off in London.
The team also assessed visibility, the distance at which an object can be seen clearly, and found visibility in Turner’s clear sky and cloudy paintings before 1830 averaged about 25 kilometers, but decreased to 10 kilometers after 1830. In several of Monet’s ‘s Charing Cross Bridge paintings, the furthest visible object is estimated to be about 1 kilometer away.
“Impressionism is often contrasted with realism, but our results highlight that Turner’s and Monet’s Impressionist works also capture a certain reality,” said co-author Peter Huybers, a climate scientist and professor at Harvard University. “Specifically, Turner and Monet seemed to realistically show sunlight filtering through smoke and clouds.”
Perhaps, some might argue, Turner and Monet’s painting style just changed over the decades, giving rise to what we now call impressionist art. But the researchers also analyzed the contrast and intensity in another 18 paintings by four other impressionist artists (James Whistler, Gustave Caillebotte, Camille Pissarro and Berthe Morisot) in London and Paris. They found the same results: Visibility in the paintings decreased as outdoor air pollution increased.
“When different artists are exposed to similar environmental conditions, they paint in more similar ways,” said Albright, based at École Normale Supérieure in Paris, “even if it happens at different points in history.”
In addition, Monet’s letters to his wife while living in London provide additional compelling evidence that he was acutely aware of the environmental changes around him. In some letters he even laments the absence of the new industries to stimulate his creativity: “Everything is as if dead, no train, no smoke or boat, nothing to excite the verve a little.”
Art historian James Rubin, who was not involved in the research, said the study was fascinating for its analysis of pigments and the progression of opacity.
“The study … provides an empirical basis for what art historians have observed,” said Rubin, who is a professor of art history at Stony Brook University, State University of New York. “These artists were certainly concerned with and were in a period of atmospheric change.”
Rubin adds that both artists drew inspiration from surrounding environmental changes, but certainly from different perspectives. He sums it up: Turner was generally anti-modern. Monet was ready to celebrate modernity, which for him signified change.
For example, Rubin said it is now widely understood that “Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway” is not a celebration of a new technology.
“Anyone who thinks about the appearance of the train can see that it is nothing but an oven on wheels,” he said. “A lot of people were afraid of the speed these engines could go – about 35 mph.”
In contrast, Monet reveled in the aesthetic effects of sunlight reflecting off clouds in the polluted sky and “celebrated the spectacle of modern change,” Rubin said.
Depictions of environmental changes or meteorology in paintings are not new. Some meteorologists argue Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” depicts polar stratospheric clouds. Some have pinpointed Vincent Van Gogh’s “Moonrise” at exactly 9:08 p.m. on July 13, 1889 in Saint Rémy de Provence, France. Turner’s other paintings accurately depicted sunsets during volcanic eruptions, which appear redder due to scattering by the aerosol-laden stratosphere.
Atmospheric scientist Fred Prata, who analyzed the meteorology in Munch’s “The Scream,” said this study reinforces his view “that art and science are much more correlated than most people believe.”
Albright said that this study, to her knowledge, is “the first to look at anthropogenic changes in the environment and how artists can capture them in painting on canvas” and through time.
Artists and others living in London and Paris at the time “were aware of changes in air pollution and really engaged with those changes,” Albright said. “Maybe it could be a kind of parallel to today of how society and how artists are responding to these unprecedented changes that we’re experiencing,” she said.
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