Comparing Foggy Morning At Pourville And Charing Cross Bridge

Laura Evans
Dr. Heather McPherson
ARH 204
11/23/17
Visual Comparison
In comparing Claude Monet’s, Foggy Morning at Pourville and André Derain’s, Charing Cross Bridge, though the artistic movement is different as well as other attributes, there are many similarities in technique, color, medium, and lighting. By conducting a formal analysis of the two works, a better understanding of the artists’ intent and style is formulated. Foggy Morning at Pourville was produced in 1882 during the Impressionist movement. Claude Monet was often described as the father of Impressionism and quickly became popular for his use of muted colors and landscape paintings. Impressionism was a time during which artists denied the use of structure and rules in art. Impressionists shied away from the use of contour lines in painting and practiced the technique of short brush strokes. Impressionism was a
combination of the way artists saw the world and their feelings behind that.
The artists during this time recorded impressions from the outside world known as en plein air. Meaning, they would paint outside to accurately portray the current lighting and surroundings. Not long after the Impressionist movement, André Derain created Charing Cross Bridge in 1906. This piece was produced during what is known as the Fauvism movement. André Derain was at the forefront of Fauvism. André, among other artists, were known as Fauves, or wild beasts. Fauves focused on establishing a way of communicating emotion through the use of rich and vivid colors. While both Fauvism and Impressionism are attempting to portray the artist’s emotional responses to the outside world, fauvism integrated the use of bold colors and expressiveness
in contrast with the muted color palette of the Impressionism movement.
The use of colors in Foggy Morning at Pourville are depictions or “impressions” of the way Monet perceived the light on the composition. The pastel color palette successfully portrays the title of Foggy Morning at Pourville. The softness of the various blues, grays, and oranges, create a foggy atmosphere in the composition. In contrast, Charing Cross Bridge, uses unnatural colors such as shades of green, purple, and pink. The background consists of a red sky behind a green cityscape. Intense colors were used in Charing Cross Bridge to further express how colors effect emotional state. Although the intensity and saturation of color in each painting is vastly different, the hues and shades are similar.
When comparing the technique of Foggy Morning at Pourville and Charing Cross Bridge the the approach of each is quite similar. The medium involved in the process of each painting consists of oil on canvas. In Foggy Morning at Pourville, inconsistent spots of brush strokes interpret the texture of the water and the way the sun fell upon the surface. The use of en plein air provides an interpretation of the aesthetics in nature. Whereas, the brush strokes in Charing Cross Bridge are patchy and short to also depict the use of light in the composition. Neither artist blended the strokes to create a smooth finish in order to fulfill the desire to produce an unnatural form of art. The process of each was to create a free and unstructured painting style. In contrast, the brush strokes of Foggy Morning at Pourville are consistently soft, short strokes throughout the piece. While the brush strokes in the background of Charing Cross Bridge are soft, the foreground is sharper to form a contoured focal point.
By comparing the characteristics of the two artistic genres, it is determined during the analysis that both, Foggy Morning at Pourville and Charing Cross Bridge are scape style paintings. Foggy Morning at Pourville is considered a landscape painting of a town in France known as Pourville. The Charing Cross Bridge, is a cityscape of a bridge in London.

In conclusion,