The artwork “Gare St.-Lazare: Arrival of a Train” by Claude Monet, dated 1877, is an oil painting on canvas that embodies the principles of the Impressionist movement. This genre painting is housed in the Fogg Museum, which is part of the Harvard Art Museums located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States.
The artwork captures a moment of modern life at the Gare Saint-Lazare, one of the main train stations in Paris. The composition is suffused with a sense of energy and movement that typifies Monet’s fascination with the industrial age. The steam from the locomotives fills the upper part of the canvas, creating a dynamic interplay with natural light, which filters through the station’s roof and merges with the man-made clouds. Locomotives dominate the foreground, while figures on the platform can be seen going about their business, rendered with quick, gestural brushstrokes that suggest their transience.
Monet has masterfully rendered the scene with a palette that relies on bluish and grayish hues, capturing the atmospheric effects and the vibrancy of the Parisian train station. The loose, almost sketch-like application of paint is characteristic of the Impressionist technique, where the emphasis lies on the overall impression created by light and color rather than on fine detail. This painting not only serves as an example of Monet’s work during this period but also reflects the broader interests of the Impressionist movement in portraying contemporary life and the impact of modernity on the environment.