[presidio9]

A woman looks at Claude Monet's "Houses of Parliament" at the Tate Britain in London in 2005. The French painter Claude Monet is being used as an environmental monitor, for scientists believe his legendary paintings of the Houses of Parliament can serve as a useful indicator of smog levels in late 19th-century London.(AFP/File/Jim Watson)

[null and void]

Smog??? That's the smell of progress!

[Red Badger]

That's like studying Chagall paintings to determine drug abuse levels in the 19th century.........

[Williams]

At some point I believe he was going blind, and obviously his paintings are not photographic in nature.

[socal_parrot]

They should be spending their time researching why this woman has no face...

[MaryFromMichigan]

"Show me the Monet!"

-Cuba Gooding Jr.

[The Electrician]

We're lucky to have his paintings to give us hard data on late 19th-century smog levels and smog colors in London. After all, we don't have any photographs from that era, because photography wasn't invented until the mid-19th century, and, um, uh, well, um... OK, let's try this again - because color photography wasn't invented until the mid-19th century, and, um, uh, well, um... Darn...

[vimto]

And Bosch can be used as an indicator of the use of acid in 15th C Holland.

Pollock to assess chewing gum on the pavement in NY 1940's

Turner the rise of global warming....

this serious?

[frogjerk]

I saw this a couple weeks back in D.C. @ The National Gallery of Art.

[trashcanbred]

Can it help us determine the level of "smug" as well?

[Gingersnap]

Let me see if I understand this: we completely believe that Monet faithfully rendered air quality in his work even though he wasn't a realist in any other aspect of his painting career.

Well, that makes sense.

[Old Professer]

"Smog became a major problem in London by the end of the 19th century, triggered by the burning of coal and particulates from factory chimneys. The phenomenon, celebrated in innumerable books and films, became a worsening health problem until it was curbed by clean-air legislation in the 1950s."

Pass a law, solve a problem.

[Between the Lines]

Reading the headline, I thought they would be analyzing the paint (not the painting) for pollutants in the air at the time that may have contaminated it.

[Mike Darancette]

The scientists believe there is strong evidence Monet faithfully rendered the London sun as he saw it at the time. In other words, the painter is unlikely to have added artistic touches when back in his studio in France in order to enhance the city's eerie "pea soup" atmosphere.

Or, maybe the paintings merely need to be cleaned.

They could use Picasso to see how Women have changed.

[tumblindice]

good read http://www.artcyclopedia.com/feature-2003-11.html
(but alla the pitchers have alreddy been colored-in)

[Charles Henrickson]

[R. Scott]

At the turn of the century, the most common source of heat was coal and wood. As I remember my childhood (when most of the people in town also used coal and wood) we had a layer of smoke and haze over the town from about October until about May.

[coconutt2000]

If Monet was going for a faithful and accurate rendition of how London looked, he could've used fewer impressionist techniques in his painting.

The attempt to glean information about the atmospheric conditions in 19th century London from Monet's paintings is a waste of time. While they're at it, they might as well try to determine the pollution in the Thames from the same imagines.

[razorback-bert]

James Abbott McNeill Whistler The Last of Old Westminster