Waterloo bridge in the sun with smoke

Waterloo Bridge in the Sun with Smoke is one of Monet's London series, painted during his winter stays at the Savoy Hotel between 1899 and 1901. The Waterloo Bridge series — distinct from the Charing Cross and Houses of Parliament groups — shows the Victorian iron bridge dissolving into the particular atmospheric cocktail of London fog and industrial smoke. The sun breaking through this haze creates the chromatic drama that Monet found irresistible about London. The Baltimore Museum of Art's holding is among the finest examples of the series outside France.

Monet builds the composition from broad horizontal bands — sky, bridge, and river — each rendered in a different chromatic register. Warm pinks and oranges in the smoke-filtered sunlight contrast with cool greys below. The bridge structure is barely legible beneath the atmospheric dissolution.