Gare Saint-Lazare: Monet's Steam and Light

To get from Paris to Giverny, you have to pass through Gare Saint-Lazare. Monet did too, and he even painted the station. The first work on the detail page is "La Gare Saint-Lazare" and the second is "The Gare Saint-Lazare: Arrival of a Train," both painted in 1877. Beyond these two, Monet produced many more works in what is known as his Saint-Lazare series, which you can see at the Musée d'Orsay. If you only know him for his gardens, it may be a surprising subject.

There's a reason he painted a train station. In those days, the railway symbolized civilization and modernity. Trains, born of the Industrial Revolution, made it easy to move freight and let people travel far, fast and with little effort. They were a shock and a fascination for the public, and painters turned their eyes to stations too. Monet was above all a painter of light as it falls on things. One day, on his way to paint by train, he noticed light shimmering through steam. Captivated by its beauty, he decided to paint the steam-filled interior of a station.

The story goes that Monet went to the station master, introduced himself as the painter Claude Monet, and asked to paint the station. He is said to have added that he had considered another station but found this one more distinctive. Whether or not the station master knew who Monet was, he was flattered and arranged the best possible conditions. Trains were kept standing in the station, and locomotives were stoked with coal so they would keep puffing out steam while Monet worked. The result was the Saint-Lazare series.

Light pouring through the station's glass roof meets the steam and produces a range of colors, and as the sun sinks it shifts into new ones. Capturing that ever-changing light on canvas is the hallmark of Impressionism, and of Monet's work in particular.