“Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare” by Claude Monet is one of four surviving Monet paintings representing the interior of the Saint-Lazare train station. Monet depicted the Gare St-Lazare as an interior landscape, with smoke from the engines creating the same effect as clouds in the sky. After several years of painting in the countryside in Argenteuil, he turned to urban landscapes in Paris. Monet was diversifying his portfolio and competing with other painters of modern life. In this painting, Monet successfully captured the effects of light, movement, and clouds of steam in a modern urban setting.
Monet had rented a small flat and a studio near the Gare St-Lazare, in 1877 where he created a series of paintings at St-Lazare Train Station. He explored smoke and steam and the way that they affected color and visibility. Monet investigated the effects of smoke and steam that were sometimes opaque and sometimes translucent in a modern urban Parisian milieu. Monet created the habit of repeatedly painted the same subject in different lighting conditions, at different times in the day, and through the various changes of weather and season. Monet began this process in the 1880s and continued until the end of his life in 1926.
Oscar-Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet was a founder of French Impressionist painting, and the term “Impressionism” is derived from the title of his painting Impression, “soleil levant” or “Impression, Sunrise,” which was exhibited in 1874. Monet adopted a method of painting in which he painted the same scene many times to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. Monet is known for having produced a series of paintings all versions of the same subject and perspective. Examples include his series of the “Valley of the Creuse” series and his famous series of “Haystacks” and “Water Lilies” paintings.
From 1883 Monet moved to Giverny, a small village on the Seine River about forty miles west of Paris. He bought a home in Giverny where he developed a garden landscape which included the lily ponds that would become the subjects of his best-known works. In 1899 he began painting the water lilies, first with a Japanese bridge as a central feature, and later in the series of large-scale paintings, with the water lilies as the main feature. This series occupied him for the last 20 years of his life.
Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare
- Title: Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare
- Artist: Claude Monet
- Year: 1877
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: Height: 596 mm (23.46 in); Width: 802 mm (31.57 in)
- Museum: Art Institute of Chicago
Claude Monet
- Name: Oscar-Claude Monet
- Born: 1840 – Paris, France
- Died: 1926 (aged 86) – Giverny, France
- Nationality: French
- Movement: Impressionism
- Notable works:
- Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond
- Farmyard in Normandy
- The Basin at Argenteuil
- A Cart on the Snowy Road at Honfleur
- Water Lilies (Honolulu Museum of Art)
- Camille Monet on a Garden Bench
- The Houses of Parliament, Sunset (National Gallery of Art, DC)
- Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond (MoMA)
- The Houses of Parliament (MET)
- Water Lilies (National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo)
- Houses of Parliament, London (Art Institute of Chicago)
- London, Houses of Parliament. The Sun Shining through the Fog (Musée d’Orsay)
- Seagulls, the River Thames and the Houses of Parliament (Pushkin Museum)
- The Gare St-Lazare (The National Gallery, London)
- “La Gare Saint-Lazare” by Claude Monet (Musée d’Orsay)
- “Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare” by Claude Monet (Art Institute of Chicago)
- Haystacks at Scottish National Gallery
- Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn) at Art Institute of Chicago
- Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer) at Art Institute of Chicago
- “Meules, milieu du jour” (National Gallery of Australia)
- “Wheatstacks, Snow Effect, Morning” (Getty Museum)
- Garden at Sainte-Adresse
- Poppy Field in a Hollow near Giverny
A Tour of the Best at the Art Institute of Chicago
- “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” by Georges Seurat
- “Nighthawks” by Edward Hopper
- “Paris Street, Rainy Day” by Gustave Caillebotte
- “American Gothic” by Grant Wood
- “The Child’s Bath” by Mary Cassatt
- “Houses of Parliament, London” by Claude Monet
- Bathers by Paul Cézanne
- “Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare” by Claude Monet
- “Saint Martin and the Beggar” by El Greco
- Two Sisters or On the Terrace by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
- Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn) by Claude Monet
- Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer) by Claude Monet
- “At the Moulin Rouge” by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
- Masterpieces of the Art Institute of Chicago
Reflections
- Where trains and railways a subject worthy of Monet’s attention?
- Are there any other impressionist artists who painted trains and railways?
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“Colors pursue me like a constant worry. They even worry me in my sleep.”
– Claude Monet
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Photo Credit: 1) Claude Monet [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons