Laboratory of Dynamic Meteorology, Sorbonne University, École normale supérieure, Paris 75005, France.
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Feb 7;120(6):e2219118120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2219118120. Epub 2023 Jan 31.
Individual paintings by artists including Vincent van Gogh and Edvard Munch have been shown to depict specific atmospheric phenomena, raising the question of whether longer-term environmental change influences stylistic trends in painting. Anthropogenic aerosol emissions increased to unprecedented levels during the 19th century as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution, particularly in Western European cities, leading to an optical environment having less contrast and more intensity. Here, we show that trends from more figurative to impressionistic representations in J.M.W. Turner and Claude Monet's paintings in London and Paris over the 19th century accurately render physical changes in their local optical environment. In particular, we demonstrate that changes in local sulfur dioxide emissions are a highly statistically significant explanatory variable for trends in the contrast and intensity of Turner, Monet, and others' works, including after controlling for time trends and subject matter. Industrialization altered the environmental context in which Turner and Monet painted, and our results indicate that their paintings capture changes in the optical environment associated with increasingly polluted atmospheres during the Industrial Revolution.
包括文森特·梵高和爱德华·蒙克在内的艺术家的个人画作被证明描绘了特定的大气现象，这引发了一个问题，即长期的环境变化是否会影响绘画的风格趋势。由于工业革命，19 世纪人为气溶胶排放增加到前所未有的水平，特别是在西欧城市，导致光环境对比度降低，强度增加。在这里，我们表明，19 世纪伦敦和巴黎的 J.M.W.特纳和克劳德·莫奈的画作从更具象到印象派的表现趋势准确地反映了当地光环境的物理变化。特别是，我们证明，当地二氧化硫排放的变化是特纳、莫奈和其他人作品对比度和强度趋势的一个高度统计学上显著的解释变量，包括在控制时间趋势和主题之后。工业化改变了特纳和莫奈绘画的环境背景，我们的结果表明，他们的画作捕捉到了与工业革命期间日益污染的大气相关的光环境变化。
