05, Monet @Gare Saint-Lazare

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Industrial Works

Landscape painters who are fond of natural scenery generally reject industrial facilities in nature. Monet believed that industrialization is a process that continues to destroy natural scenery. In fact, this view is still very marketable to this day. For example, landscape photographers often deliberately avoid telegraph poles in the lens, or erase them at a later stage.

This Gare Saint-Lazare is one of Monet’s few industrial works.

In 1877, Monet suddenly became obsessed with a new painting object: the train. He was fascinated by the white smoke and steam emitted by the steam engine head of the train when it was running. For Monet's artistic pursuit of painting light and air, this smoke was endlessly changing from semi transparent to opaque, it was just perfect.

《欧洲桥-圣拉扎尔火车站》，莫奈，1877

Le Pont de l'Europe, Gare Saint-Lazare，Claude Monet

@《莫奈&印象派大师展》

©MuséeMarmottan Monet, Académie des beaux-arts, Paris

Saint-Lazare Railway Station

Let me first introduce the Saint-Lazare railway station. It was completed in 1837 and was the first line in France designed solely for passenger transport and operated with steam locomotives.

By 1867, the annual passenger flow had reached 25 million, making it the busiest railway station in Paris.

1868年的圣拉扎尔火车站

The Actor Monet

At the Gare Saint-Lazare railway station , Monet set up his easel, but before he could start painting, a problem appeared. Because he insisted on visual observation, the smoke emitted by the train was only fleeting. How could he observe it longer?

The actor Monet stepped on the stage！

He donned some decent rented clothes and walked into the office of the general manager of the railway station, relying on his bluffing aura and talent. With an extraordinary performance, he put on the appearance of a master artist bringing a ‘privilage’ to the Railway Station. He said to the manager “The Gare du Nord railway station very much hopes that I will paint them, but I prefer the momentum of the Saint-Lazare Railway Station... “

The station manager was dumbfounded, completely taken in by the ‘master’, and ordered his staff to cooperate fully with the master's artistic creation. The manager asked the locomotive operator to emit steam specifically for Monet, so that he could better observe it. He also postponed the departure time of the train, because the ‘master’ said “in half an hour, the light will be better.”

Today, we want to thank this simple and gullible train station manager. It was hi that made this railway station have a place in art history. There are 12 pictures in the Saint-Lazare Train Station series, and I have put them all in the graphic area.