"I'm very disheartened by the weather... it is not possible to work on the same paintings two days in succession, and I'll have to limit myself to concentrating only on studies and rough sketches so that I make something of them at my leisure in the studio."
-- Letter from Claude Monet in London to Alice Monet, 2 March 1901.1
In September 1899 Monet went to London with intention of working on his series paintings, staying for six weeks at the Savoy Hotel. He returned for almost three months in 1900 and again in 1901. His first exhibition of his London paintings was in 1904, showing series paintings of the Waterloo Bridge, Charing Cross Bridge, and the Houses of Parliament. If it hadn't been for a delay by customs though, the paintings may have looked quiet different.
When Monet arrived in London in January 1901, his art materials and unfinished paintings from his previous visit to the city were held up at customs, so "he began to sketch in pastel, the only medium he had to hand"2. Working with pastel, rather than oils, "forced him to forge a different relationship with his motif [as] pastel delivered colour in its full and immediate brilliance and it did not have to dry to reveal its full effect"3.
In the week it took his art supplies to arrive, Monet did 25 pastels. Writing to his wife, Alice, he said "It is thanks to my pastels, made swiftly, that I realise how to proceed."4
References:
1. Monet by Himself, edited by Richard Kendall, Macdonald & Co Publishers, London 1989, p192.
2. The Unknown Monet by Debra Mancoff, in RA Magazine, Spring 2007.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.