The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC is part of the
amazing collection of museums and galleries within a stone’s throw [though I
wouldn’t try it, if I were you] of the White House and the Capitol building,
which are collectively known as the Smithsonian Institution.
Edouard Manet’s “The Railway” is just one of the
recognisable masterpieces in an extraordinary array of work from Da Vinci and Giotto
to Constable, Turner and Gainsborough and that’s before you even get to the
impressionists.
It depicts Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris in 1873, though the
only evidence of the train is the cloud of steam visible through the iron
railings. Apparently, it was not well received by the critics at the time and
was referred to as baffling, incoherent and sketchy. It was later interpreted more
favourably as a very modern painting of its time. What is striking about it for
me is that it is a very early and very unusual railway painting that once
viewed will never be forgotten.
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