Charing Cross Bridge, The Thames 02 1903

In 1903, Claude Monet made this painting of Charing Cross Bridge and the Thames in oil. It's less about capturing a scene than it is about capturing a feeling. The whole canvas shimmers with these short, broken strokes of color. Look at how the blues and purples in the water are laid down next to touches of orange and yellow. It’s like he's trying to bottle the way light dances on the surface, not just describe the water itself. There’s a real push and pull between what’s there and what’s suggested, like the buildings in the distance that dissolve into the misty atmosphere. It reminds me of Turner, another painter obsessed with light and atmosphere, but Monet's got this way of making it feel so immediate, so alive. It's less about precision, more about poetry, and lets us experience art as an ongoing conversation across time.