Monet and London review – genius lurks behind the capital’s filthy light

Courtauld Gallery, London
Between 1899 and 1901, this passionate painter of beauty came to Britain’s polluted capital to experiment with ugliness. Through the smog emerged a great modernist‘Only an eye – but my God, what an eye!” said Cézanne of Monet. But no artist is only an eye. Posing as an innocent, unquestioning painter of the light that came to him gave Monet a helpful privacy, a professional facade, behind which he could explore wild poetic thoughts. His ea