Catching the 1877 Monet...

Catching the 1877 Monet Train

based on Claude Monet's
La Gare Saint-Lazare
painted on December 3, 2021, 14" x 11"
(w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam,
and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light
fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade
proof ink on 140 lb. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough
100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed, $500

Claude Monet's Train Station Series
The Gare Saint-Lazare Monet Paintings

1
La Gare Saint-Lazare
Claude Monet (1840-1926), French
Oil on canvas, 41" x 30" (w x h), 1877
Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France

Monet's first series of paintings was of an engine-smoky glass-covered train station. After working on rural landscapes, Claude Monet returned to Paris in 1877 and made a dozen oil paintings of the Gare Saint-Lazare railway station in Paris. The Impressionist painting series captures the smoky interior of this Paris railway station, in varied atmospheric conditions and from various points of view. The works were, in part, a response to the criticism of his painting Impression, Sunrise, which was exhibited at the First Impressionist Exhibition in April 1874, and also fashionable depictions of technical progress: the modern steam train and the newly extended iron and glass train shed at the station.

Eight of the paintings were exhibited at the Third Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in April 1877. They were admired by Émile Zola, who later wrote his 1890 novel The Beast Within, a tense, psychological thriller that based on the train between Paris and Le Havre.

2
The Gare Saint-Lazare: Arrival of a Train
Claude Monet (1840-1926), French
Oil on canvas, 39" x 31" (w x h), 1877
Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums,
Cambridge, Massachusetts

3
Arrival of the Normandy Train,
Gare Saint-Lazare
Claude Monet (1840-1926), French
Oil on canvas, 32" x 23" (w x h), 1877
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

4
The Gare St-Lazare
Claude Monet (1840-1926), French
Oil on canvas, 29" x 21" (w x h), 1877
National Gallery, London, England

After his return to France from London, Monet lived from 1871-78 at Argenteuil, on the Seine near Paris. In January 1877 he rented a small flat and a studio near the Gare St-Lazare, and in the third Impressionist exhibition which opened in April of that year, he exhibited seven canvases of the railway station. Monet's exceptional views of the Gare St-Lazare resemble interior landscapes, with smoke from the engines creating the same effect as clouds in the sky. Swift brushstrokes indicate the gleaming engines to the right and the crowd of passengers on the platform.

See the entire set of 12 Gare Saint-Lazare (Monet series) on Wiki HERE.