10. Beginnings and Endings

Alexandra Harris concludes the story of how the weather has written and painted itself into the cultural life of Britain.

In Oscar Wilde's essay 'The Decay of Lying', a character proposes that we see in nature what art shows us to be there. He contends that the London fogs barely existed before artists started painting them.

Then suddenly there were Whistler effects every night in Battersea and Monets rising up from the Thames. Art, he says, invented the fog. Well, that may be ridiculous, but perhaps there's a wisp of truth in it.

Music by Jon Nicholls.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2016.