Detailed Analysis: Claude Monet's 'Houses of Parliament' Series

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of Claude Monet's 'Houses of Parliament' series, focusing on the characteristics of Impressionism. The essay examines Monet's techniques, including his use of short, thick brushstrokes, the application of color to create vibrant surfaces, and the importance of natural light in capturing different times of day. It explores how Monet broke away from traditional art conventions, employing composition to capture the viewer's perspective and using color to create movement and vibrancy. The essay also discusses the significance of juxtaposition and the artist's ability to depict the momentary effects of sunlight, highlighting the core principles of the Impressionist movement and their application in Monet's work.

The Houses of Parliament Sunset- Claude Monet
Student’s Name
Subject
Date

1
The Houses of Parliament- Claude Monet
The Houses of Parliament sunset is a series of an oil painting of the palace of
Westminster done by Claude Monet in 1899. All the series that he painted share the same
viewpoint and are approximately 81 cm × 92 cm (32 in × 36 3/8 in). The only difference is that
they were painted during different times of the day and thus influenced by the weather
conditions1. This means that the piece of art was intended to study the monument at different
times of the day which was seen as a focus on the ideals of emptiness. Being one of the founders
of the impressionism movement the work shows different elements of impressionism. This
movement marked a break away from the traditional European painting and chose to use a new
methodology of using relatively small and thin brush strokes to depict the open depiction of
light2. Being one of the impressionist founders, Monet’s work can be seen in composition, use of
light, subject matter inclusion and also movement in the work to show how perception and
experience can be shown in different angles.
Use of short and thick brush strokes to capture the essence of the subject matter is one of
the characteristics of this movement. The colors are applied side by side to create a vibrant
surface that occurs in the eyes of the viewer3. This means that the artists mixed different colors to
generate a tone that was different and in most cases black is not used. This means that the artists
mostly focus on producing opaque paintings that are done during any time of the day to capture
what exists.
Another element of the impressionist movement characteristic is the use of natural light.
This is seen in the way the artist pays attention to natural light through the use of color reflection
to show different times of the day. This means that impressionists valued the use of natural light
1 Cumming, Laura. 2018. "Monet & Architecture." The Guardian, December 20.
2 Eisenman, Stephen. 2010. From Corot to Monet: The Ecology of Impressionism. Milan: Skira.
3 Brown, Mark. 2017. "Monet's UK parliament paintings to feature in Tate Britain exhibition." The Guardian, October 30.

2
by mixing colors to display it since they believed that light was the creative principle used to
show appearance. Thus it was used to show movement, time and life4. That is why when you
look at the different works that have been done by Monet on the house of parliament sunset, the
movement is seen as times change. This is why several pieces of the work were created to show
movement from morning to evening to show the viewer the natural form of the place when
viewed at different times of the day. Further, the shadows in these pieces of work show the blue
nature of the sky that is reflected on surfaces. Thus Monet applied this element of work by giving
a sense of openness and freshness that lacked in previous artworks.
The artist also used composition to show the movement away from the conventional art
where the main subject matter commanded the viewer’s attention. This means that the
impressionist use of composition used boundary relaxation to create snapshots that captured the
larger reality5. In the house of parliament susnset, Monet uses composition to capture the reality
in the piece of work by capturing the image of the viewer to the direction of the view rather than
only focusing on the image. This means that the background was part of the image rather than in
traditional works where it was differentiated through color contrast6. This means that through the
use of dominance and harmony of colors, differences in intensity were used to create subtle
contrast to capture the specific event of the day. This means that the impressionist broke away
from the traditional use of color luminosity to create images. This means that the mixture of
colors was used to attract the eye by ensuring that the colors retained their purity and vibrated
making the viewer to understand the differences in the images through movement.
4 Schapiro, Meyer. 2018. Impressionism Reflections and Perceptions. Prod. James Thompson University.
5 Charthaigh, A, and A. O'Sullivan. 2010. preciating Art. Dublin: Macmillan, Dublin.
6 Ives, Colta. 2018. "Impressionism Symbolism ." The Metropolitan Museum of A 1-53.

3
Therefore, the impressionist movement was based on juxtaposition where pure colors
only appeared on the surface to reproduce the nature of the atmosphere. Thus impressionists
were keen on showing movement in their works and capturing nature to show the exact time of
the day through the use of natural light to capture the image. Thus for impressionists, the use of
color and light was the only thing that they could use to create the composition of their images to
show how natural they were and at the same time show movement. Thus the violation of natural
laws of art by this movement led them to use freely brushed colors that made it easy to paint
realistic scenes in life. The naturalness of the images that they produced shows that they were
done from outside thus allowing them to capture the momentary and transient effects of sunlight.

4
Bibliography
Brown, Mark. 2017. "Monet's UK parliament sunset paintings to feature in Tate Britain
exhibition." The Guardian, October 30.
Charthaigh, A, and A. O'Sullivan. 2010. preciating Art. Dublin: Macmillan, Dublin.
Cumming, Laura. 2018. "Monet & Architecture." The Guardian, December 20.
Eisenman, Stephen. 2010. From Corot to Monet: The Ecology of Impressionism. Milan: Skira.
Ives, Colta. 2018. "Impressionism Symbolism ." The Metropolitan Museum of A 1-53.
Schapiro, Meyer. 2018. Impressionism Reflections and Perceptions. Prod. James Thompson
University.