Did air pollution influence famous impressionist painters? | Hacker News Reader

Did air pollution influence famous impressionist painters?

smithsonianmag.com

80 pointsrntn15 comments

A related hypothesis[1] connects the Tambora eruption in 1815 with the colors of the sky in paintings made in the years thereafter, e.g. “Greifswald im Mondschein” ‘Greifswald in the moonlight’ by Caspar David Friedrich in 1817, see: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Caspar_David_Friedrich_0...

[1] https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/14/2987/2014/acp-14-2987...

Also the Krakatoa eruption of 1883 and The Scream by Edvard Munch in 1893.

Turner wasn’t an impressionist, and he didn’t make impressionist works. He died about the time the impressionists were born.

The invention of the camera had more to do with the transition away from realism than anything else. It’s not mentioned in the article.

Smog in the air would have been accurately represented in any artist’s work. It’s interesting that the paintings agree with climate science about the air quality in the area, but trying to say it had a significant influence on the style seems wrong to me. The school of style isn’t particularly focused on landscapes or the sky. Degas’s ballerinas, for example, are indoors.

I recall several pastoral paintings with steam trains—- Have you ever seen a live steam train IRL? Massive smoke plume.

I believe such visual phenomena could inspire art, even if it’s only indirectly through other artists.

Great idea, but without actual written confession, we can only discuss by visual examination. Article just has too few images.

> “These results indicate that Turner and Monet’s paintings capture elements of the atmospheric environmental transformation during the Industrial Revolution,” the researchers write

I think it’s more that the painter captured the change/modifications caused by the Industrial Revolution, then “capturing the pollution”.

> change/modifications caused by the Industrial Revolution

So...pollution.

Yes but kow we know that is pollution, in 1800 they didn’t know that was pollution, that is why I said that the painters captured “the change” (and without know it, the actual air pollution)

You can smell it and often identify what it it, they knew.

The Romans had court cases relating to air quality and London was suffering in the 1200s. In the 1300s London started legislating to try and control the pollution.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/air-pollution-...

https://www.londonair.org.uk/londonair/guide/londonhistory.a...

I am sure they noticed the smog. Besides, lots of people see and comment on things they do not understand all the time. Influence is not necessarily a conscious process.

In the same way as it is known that Monet’s painting was probably influenced by his poor sight even if there is no evidence that he did it on purpose.

how much lead was in their paints which absorbed into skin and mouth when they would whet their brush with saliva?

Not just lead! Cadmium (yellow) and arsenic (green) feature prominently too

That’s not really a good hypothesis. Lead was not invented by the impressionists. Why would they be the first? You’d expect some kind of correlation; lead has been widely used since ancient times. How is this any better that pollution, which is known and documented?

i think you're actually referencing the Radium Girls, the radioactive flourescence illuminated watchface dial painters

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/radium-girls-radioactive-p...

There is plenty of paint that was lead based throughout history. But as some other posters mentioned lead has been used in human history for thousands of years.

lead has been bad for people for thousands of years; one of the problems with heavy metal poisoning is that it's cumulative, it's not eliminated and the concentration in an individual will keep increasing.

but I was referring to the "paintbrush in mouth" aspect.

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