© Brian Snyder/Reuters
Claude Monet had first visited London as he sought refuge from the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-71, when he painted one of the early impressions of the River Thames in mist, shown in yesterday’s article. He was to return just before the end of the century, when his fortunes had changed and he could afford to travel in search of motifs. Where better than the River Thames for the optical effects of mist, fog and smog?
Monet had started painting formal series during the 1880s, when he was enjoying commercial success at last. From about 1896, almost all his works were part of a series. He started travelling through Europe in search of suitable motifs for these, visiting Norway in 1895, and later Venice. When he returned to London in 1899, and in the following two years, Monet chose a different view of the Palace of Westminster, from a location at the opposite end of Westminster Bridge, for his series of 19 paintings. These were all started from the second floor of the Administrative Block at the northern end of the old Saint Thomas’s Hospital on the ‘south’ bank, and completed over the following three or four years.
His The Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Effect (1903) is more radical than his painting of thirty years earlier, showing little more than the Palace in silhouette, the sun low in the sky, and its broken reflections in the water.
The Houses of Parliament, Sunset (1903) shows the same view in better visibility, but with the sun setting and a small boat on the move in front of the Palace.
Monet’s Waterloo Bridge from 1903 is the ultimate conclusion of his paintings of fog, in which only the softest of forms resolve in its pale purple and blue vagueness, his common destination with the paintings of Turner over fifty years earlier.
In The Houses of Parliament, Stormy Sky (1904) the sun is higher and further to the south, allowing Monet to balance the silhouette of the Palace with its shadow cast on the water, and the brightness in the sky with its fragmented reflections.
Henri Le Sidaner also visited Britain on several occasions, and in 1906-07 painted this view of St. Paul’s from the River: Morning Sun in Winter, which may have been inspired by Monet’s series paintings of Rouen Cathedral, here expressed using his own distinctive marks.
Emile Claus’s Sunset over Waterloo Bridge (1916) was painted from a location on the north bank of the Thames slightly to the east of Waterloo Bridge, the north end of which is prominent, and looks south-west into the setting sun, up river. Claus painted several views of Waterloo Bridge while he was in London, but doesn’t appear to have attempted any formal series, such as Monet’s.
Claus isn’t formulaic in his treatment. He uses billowing clouds of steam and smoke to great effect, and his inclusion of the road, trees and terraces in the foreground, on the Embankment, provides useful contrast with the crisp arches of the bridge, and the vaguer silhouettes in the distance. Like Monet’s series, this was probably painted from a temporary studio inside a building.
Claus’s Morning Reflection on the Thames in London, from 1918, is a view over the Embankment and river that’s desaturated and made vaguer by fog.
My last example is another view over the River Thames, this time by Lesser Ury. London in Fog from 1926 doesn’t appear to be a nocturne, but looks at the effects of fog on both lights and their reflections.
On 4 December 1952, a high pressure system settled over London. The wind fell away, and fog and smoke were trapped under a temperature inversion. The following day the whole of the city and an area totalling over one thousand square miles were blanketed in smog that remained until 9 December. It’s estimated that directly caused over ten thousand deaths. A succession of laws and a major campaign to eliminate open coal fires in London resulted in great improvement, although a decade later there was another lesser smog, perhaps the event I remember from my childhood. The beauty of those paintings can also be deadly.
Elon Musk 真是个讲故事的好手。
The future should look like the future.
虽然看着有些冰冷，虽然还有一段时间，但把这么激进的设计落地，真的令人佩服。
尤其那只手，和那辆大车。
我要收回之前的话，Tesla 不是下一个丰田，丰田太小了。
它更像「通用」，即是 GE，也是 GM。
在西西弗里偶遇这本书，随手翻了一下，被设定吸引了，就一下看了前九章。
二十三天后回到书店里把余下的二十二章看完了，满足的同时又觉得很失望。
满足的是，这个下午是我近一年来完整读完了一本书的时刻；失望的是，前半截一直吊着我胃口的摆渡世界的故事，最后居然演变成了俗气的爱情故事和死而复生的怪诞情节。我不喜欢这样的收尾。
但是，迪伦凭着自己的信念从死亡的世界回到人间这段路，这一路的勇气，是我愿意把第三颗星打上来的原因。书里的男女角色我都不怎么喜欢，无辜枉死的三十六岁女士也很莫名其妙，但对于此刻低气压的我而言，我喜欢迪伦一路冲过去的那份勇气和冒险的决心。
对多数人而言，读这本书是浪费时间。但我之所以感觉还行，是因为我太久没有体会到「完成」一件事时「结束」的那一刻了。哪怕这一刻并不欢欣鼓舞，但我完成了。
相对应的，前两天看完的两部片子，让我感到心里非常的舒坦。一个是贾玲的新电影《热辣滚烫YOLO》，另外一个是 Casey 最新的一条 vlog《Sisyphus and the Impossible Dream》。
一方面惊叹于贾玲真的一年瘦下来一百斤，练成了可以和职业拳击运动员打几下的状态；二来佩服于她为了实现这个目标所做的一切努力，一切向生活挥拳而做的事情。她不是瘦了，而是变了一个人，瘦下来只是一个副产品。
Casey 的 vlog 时间跨度长达 17 年。从大腿骨折，到跑进三小时以内，从二十来岁到四十多，一切的付出，就像西西弗斯一次次推石头上山，不仅过程令我震动，结果更是让我感受到了希望！
他俩是我 2024 年初的第一束光。
每年都拆一些东西，今年拆的比较少，今天拆一台相机。
奥林巴斯EP2是2009年上市的一台M43画幅相机，伴随了我好几年，像素只有1200w，画质以现在眼光来看，可以说惨不忍睹，不过影像就是这样，能记住的就是好的。
相机使用到后期因为被海水溅到过，所以有些生锈，今天拆解里面也有螺丝生锈了，液晶显示屏也坏了，但凑合还能用，去年搬家充电器也不知道放哪儿了，这样看TA具备了被拆的要素，拆吧。
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