Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Effect

Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Effect (Le Parlement, effet de soleil) is a painting by Claude Monet signed and dated "Claude Monet 1903" at lower left. It shows the Palace of Westminster as a blue-gray silhouette in a lilac haze, while a hidden sun at upper right scatters points of gold across the Thames. The canvas measures 81.3 by 92.1 centimeters and is in the Brooklyn Museum in New York (accession 68.48.1), a bequest of Grace Underwood Barton. Wildenstein lists it as number 1597.

What you're looking at

The palace stretches across the canvas from left to right. The great square tower rises left of center, unusually crisp at its crown of pinnacles; to the right, spires and a cluster of towers stand against the light. The building is painted in blue-gray and violet, with soft edges where it meets the air.

The sun itself is not shown. It is somewhere beyond the upper right corner, where the sky brightens to cream, yellow and pale gold in sweeping diagonal strokes. The rest of the sky is a smoky mauve.

The water is the subject. Across the lower right, light falls on the river in a broad path of short, horizontal flecks: gold, orange, white and pink, set against blue and violet. They read as sunlight breaking on small waves. At left, away from the light, the river is calmer and grayer. The signature is placed at lower left in dark blue.

Sunlight on water: what makes this version distinct

Most Parliament canvases are about fog or sunset. This one is about a moment when the sun broke through and lit the river from the side. The title Monet's catalogue gives it, effet de soleil, marks that difference. The glittering path on the water is closest to the Kunsthaus Zürich's Houses of Parliament, Sunset, where an orange sunburst also throws a path of light across the Thames, and to the Musée Marmottan's London, Parliament, Reflections on the Thames.

Compared with the thick fogs of the Met's The Houses of Parliament (Effect of Fog), the Brooklyn picture is clear and luminous. The palace remains readable, the sky open, the river alive.

How it was painted

Monet painted the Parliament views from St Thomas' Hospital, across the Thames from Westminster, during trips to London in 1900 and 1901. The museum notes that he made nineteen versions of the motif in changing weather and light. He kept many canvases going, worked on each as its effect returned, and reworked them at Giverny before showing thirty-seven Thames paintings at Durand-Ruel's gallery in Paris in 1904.

The handling here is varied. The sky is painted in long, sweeping diagonals; the palace in vertical strokes; the water in short horizontal touches, each a single color. The glittering effect comes from placing warm and cool touches side by side, so that the eye mixes them into sparkle.

Notice also the upper right corner, where the sky is painted in thick, sweeping strokes of cream and gold that seem to radiate from the hidden sun. They are the most energetic marks on the canvas, and they lead the eye down to the glitter on the water.

Monet at the Brooklyn Museum

The painting came to Brooklyn in 1968 through the bequest of Grace Underwood Barton. The museum also holds Monet's Venice view of the Doge's Palace, painted in 1908, making it a good place to compare his two great city campaigns of the 1900s.

Details to look for

The palace is not uniformly blue. Near the right, where the sun is closest, its edges are warmed with pink and gold, as if the building itself were catching the light. Look at the water at the far left, which is smooth and gray-blue, and compare it with the dancing flecks at right: the contrast between calm and glitter tells you where the sun is.

Where to see it

The painting is in the Brooklyn Museum, in its European art galleries when on view. See our Houses of Parliament series hub, Monet in London, Where to See Monet and Claude Monet.