Waterloo Bridge, Gray Day

Claude Monet

National Gallery of Art

We look across a river at a bridge that spans the center of this horizontal landscape, which is painted entirely with broad, visible brushstrokes in muted blue, pink, and brown. The straight deck of the bridge crosses the center of the composition but angles slightly away from us as it moves to our right. The four low arches of the bridge are ash brown on their face, and their curved undersides are cobalt blue. Marigold-orange and teal-blue marks on the deck above suggest traffic, and shell-pink smoke or steam billows over our side of the bridge. Three long, narrow forms in the water between and in front of the bridge pilings suggest boats. The sky above is painted loosely with icy blue and pale peach around the slate-blue silhouettes of buildings and smokestacks lining the far bank. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner: “Claude Monet 1903.”