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Scientists confirm long held theory about what inspired Monet
In a letter to his wife in March 1901, pioneering French painter Claude Monet lamented the bad weather that prevented him from working, as well as another conspicuous impediment to his creativity.
"Everything is as good as dead, no train, no smoke, no boat, nothing to excite the inspiration a little," he wrote.
Monet, now celebrated as a founder of Impressionism, was in London during one of three trips he took to the city between 1899 and 1901, which yielded over 100 paintings. His reference to smoke — which would have come abundantly from the steam engines of boats and trains — as a potential creative spark seems to support a theory long held by some art historians about what was behind the distinctive dreamy haze in Monet's work. Now a recent study by climate scientists has found new evidence to confirm it.
"I work on air pollution and while seeing Turner, Whistler and Monet paintings at Tate in London and Musée d'Orsay in Paris, I noticed stylistic transformations in their works," said Anna Lea Albright, a postdoctoral researcher for Le Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique at Sorbonne University in Paris, in a phone interview. Albright coauthored the study with Peter Huybers, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University.
"The contours of their paintings became hazier, the palette appeared wider and the style changed from more figurative to more impressionistic: Those changes accord with physical expectations of how air pollution influences light," she added.
The team looked at over 100 paintings by Monet and British painter Joseph Mallord William Turner, who was active before Monet, with the goal of finding an empirical basis to the hypothesis that the paintings capture increasingly polluted skies during the Industrial Revolution.
The focus was on these two artists because they prolifically painted landscapes and cityscapes, often with repeated motifs, according to the study authors.
A visual chronicle of atmospheric change
In the period covered by the paintings, 1796 to 1901, a huge amount of coal was mined to support industrial manufacturing and steam engines. Britain alone went from producing 2.9 million tons of coal per year in 1700 to 275 million tons by 1900, leading to visible air pollution that caused widespread health problems. The soot from the coal created a thick, dark fog, and the number of foggy days in London rose threefold between 1850 and 1890, from 25 to 75 per year, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
"In general, air pollution makes objects appear hazier, makes it harder to identify their edges, and gives the scene a whiter tint, because pollution reflects visible light of all wavelengths," Albright said.
The team looked for these two metrics, edge strength and whiteness, in the paintings — by converting them into mathematical representations based on brightness — and then compared the results with independent estimates of historical air pollution.
"We found that there was a surprisingly good match," Albright said.
The paintings chronicle the historical changes in the atmospheric environment, according to the researchers, and particularly the rise in emissions of sulfur dioxide, a coal-derived pollutant that causes acid rain and respiratory issues. The connection goes beyond artistic evolution and style, they note, because London and Paris, where Turner and Monet were respectively based, industrialized at different times and at different rates, which is reflected in the works.
Further proof, according to Albright, comes from the artists' backgrounds, specifically Turner's interest in the growing scientific understanding of the sky at the time, and Monet's letters, highlighting the influence of air pollution on his creativity. In another one, he tells his wife he was "terrified" by the lack of fog, but was comforted when "the fires were lit and the smoke and haze came back."
Science vs. style
Jonathan Ribner, a professor of European art at Boston University, was among the first art historians to suggest a connection between the two artists' work and pollution, in a 2004 essay written for "Turner Whistler Monet," an exhibition of 100 Impressionist paintings that toured Toronto, Paris and London.
"When I saw the study, I was delighted because it really suggests a vindication of what I had been writing about almost two decades ago, which was that air pollution is a significant contextual factor for some 19th century paintings," Ribner said in a phone interview.
"Turner and Monet are both artists who had to go to places to see certain conditions," he added. "There was this phenomenon of fog tourism, where French visitors like Monet went to London deliberately to see the fog, because they loved the atmospheric effects. He didn't like it when the fog was so thick that he just couldn't see anything, but he hated it when there was no fog and it was blue skies, because it didn't look like London. Apparently he destroyed some of those canvases with a clear sky."
However, art critic Sebastian Smee has lambasted the study, saying that it confuses "internal creative choices with external stimuli." He argued that increased pollution can't be used to explain the artists' stylistic evolution, and that some of their works are "mythological," rather than a picture of objective reality.
Regarding that point of view, Albright said it was never the intention of the study to discount any art historical approach, or reduce the paintings to just a number or a scientific analysis, but rather to expand the understanding and the appreciation of these works by offering another angle from which to study them.
"What I think is really wonderful about these works is that Monet creates beautiful atmospheric effects from something as ugly and dirty as smoke and soot," she added.
"He and Turner, they don't turn away from the pollution, but they were able to transform these negative environmental changes into a source of creative inspiration."
注释：
lament: v
表示" 哀悼；惋惜"，means " feel or express deep sorrow"，如：She lament her son's death all night.她整夜为儿子之死而悲伤。
conspicuous: adj
表示"显著的；显眼的；"，means "noticeable; attracting attention;"，如： Lincoln is a conspicuous example of a poor boy who succeeded. 林肯是一个穷苦孩子而功成名就的出色例子。
impediment: n
表示"障碍；阻碍"，means "any structure that makes progress difficult"，如： The main impediment to growth is a lack of capital. 影响发展的主要障碍是缺乏资本。
postdoctoral: adj
表示" 博士后的"，means "of or relating to study or research that is done after work for the doctoral degree has been completed"，如：I'm doing postdoctoral research at the moment. 我正在做博士后研究。
coauthor: v
表示" 合著"，means "collaborates with others in writing something"，如： He's written over 100 articles and coauthored a book on SQL Server. 他曾撰写过100多篇文章,还与人合著过有关SQL Server的书籍。
planetary: adj
表示" 行星的"，means "of or relating to or characteristic of the planet Earth or its inhabitants"，如： He formulated the theory of planetary movement. 他系统阐述了行星运动理论。
contour: v; n
1. v表示" 画轮廓(画等高线)"，means "form the contours of"，如：Could you contour the mountain? 你能把这座山的等高线画出来吗？
2. n表示"轮廓"，means any spatial attributes (especially as defined by outline)如：The contour of that mountain looks like a dragon. 那座大山的轮廓看上去像一条龙。
palette: n
表示"调色板"，means "board that provides a flat surface on which artists mix paints and the range of colors used"，如： He picked his brushes and palette. 他提起画笔和调色板。
figurative: adj
表示" 比喻的"，means "(used of the meanings of words or text) not literal; using figures of speech;"，如： The word here is used in its figurative sense. 此词在这儿取的是它的比喻意义。
Empirical：adj
表示"经验主义的；"，means " based on observation or experiment"，如：His science was generally empirical and often bad.他的科学一般来自经验, 经常很糟。
prolifically: adv
表示"多产地；丰富地"，means "intellectually productive"，如：When food is plentiful, live in the fast lane and breed prolifically. 食物充足时，缩短寿命，尽量繁殖；
motif： n
表示"主题"，means "a theme that is repeated or elaborated in a piece of music"，如：Love is an eternal motif in art and literature. 爱情是文学艺术中的永恒主题。
soot: n
表示" 煤烟"，means "a black colloidal substance consisting wholly or principally of amorphous carbon and used to make pigments and ink"，如：She is sweeping the soot off the chimney. 她正把烟筒里的黑灰扫掉。
respiratory；adj
表示"呼吸的"，means "pertaining to respiration"，如： The lungs are respiratory organs. 肺是呼吸器官。
vindication: n
表示" 辩护"，means "the act of vindicating or defending against criticism or censure etc"，如：Truth is generally the best vindication against slander. 事实通常是防备诋毁的最佳辩护。
canvas: n
表示"帆布"，means "strong rough cloth used for tents, sails, bags"，如：The hole was covered (over) with canvas. 这个洞被帆布遮盖住了。
lambast: v
表示"谴责"，means "censure severely or angrily"，如： Only months ago,the idea that Mr Bush would publicly lambast America's corporate bosses was laughable. 可是就在几个月前，布什公开抨击美国大公司老板的想法却是荒谬可笑的。
mythological: adj
表示"神话的"，means "based on or told of in traditional stories"，如： He is remembered for his historical and mythological works. 他以其带有历史感和神话色彩的作品而著称。
atmospheric：adj
表示" 大气的"，means "relating to or located in the atmosphere"，如： Atmospheric conditions often prevent observation of stars. 大气的情况常使人们无法观察星星
中文简要说明：
举世闻名的法国印象派画家莫奈（Claude Monet），经常在画作中呈现景色烟雾朦胧的美感。然而根据气候科学家近期研究显示，莫奈画的很可能是19世纪工业革命下的时代氛围：空气污染。
根据美国有线电视新闻网CNN报导，研究人员检视超过莫奈与浪漫主义画家泰纳（Joseph Mallord William Turner）从1796到1901年间的作品，在超过100幅画作中，注意到明显的风格转变。「画家描绘的景物愈来愈模糊，使用的色彩愈来愈广，风格也渐渐从具象转成印象派，可以看出空气污染影响了光线，」法国索邦大学博士后研究员欧布莱特（Anna Lea Albright）表示。
研究人员进一步分析画作的锐利度和白度（whiteness），并将这些数据与空气质量历史推估数据相比，发现两者之间出现惊人的巧合。这个发现证明了两位大师的作品呈现的不仅仅是风格，更是伦敦、巴黎两地空污恶化过程的详实记录。 此外，莫奈的家书也证实了科学家的推测。他曾在1901年从伦敦写信给妻子，抱怨工厂停工时，「身边的一切美好跟死了没两样，少了火车、雾霾、船只，一点灵感刺激也没有。」专研欧洲艺术史的波士顿大学教授李伯纳（Jonathan Ribner）更指出，莫奈显然亲手毁掉了部分作品，只因那些画里没有雾霾，「看起来不像伦敦。」
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