During three trips to London at the turn of the 20th century, Claude Monet painted more than 40 versions of a single scene: the Waterloo Bridge over the Thames River. Monet\u2019s main subject was not the bridge itself, however; he was most captivated by the landscape and atmosphere of the scene, with its transitory light, fog, and mist.<\/p>\n
Eight paintings from this series of London fogs are the centerpiece of the Memorial Art Gallery\u2019s exhibition Monet\u2019s Waterloo Bridge: Vision and Process<\/em><\/a>. A recognized master of landscape painting, Monet was an integral founder of the Impressionist movement, which embraced the philosophy of expressing the fleeting sensory effects in a scene.<\/p>\n But how does Monet depict the same scene at different times of day and in various conditions? And how does a viewer see an artist\u2019s brushstrokes of color as a cohesive image, and vastly different colors as the same bridge?<\/p>\n With each of the paintings in the series<\/a>, Monet manipulates viewer perception in a way that scientists at the time did not completely understand. Today, research such as that conducted at the University of Rochester\u2019s Center for Visual Science<\/a>, founded in 1963, provides insight into the complexity of the visual system, illuminating Monet\u2019s processes and the intricacies of his work.<\/p>\n