Trains in art

Vor der Vollendung (Before the Completion), 1873-1876, by Paul Friedrich Meyerheim

A locomotive or train can play many roles in art, for example:

• As a work of art in itself in addition to most functional considerations, especially in streamlined steam locomotives and luxury passenger accommodations of the early 20th century, known also as the Machine Age
• As a subject for a novel or film
• As a metaphor in song or poetry, particularly for physical power or directed movement (physical, romantic or other), as in "Fisherman's Blues":

..."I wish I was the brakeman

on a hurtling, fevered train

crashing headlong into the heartland

like a cannon in the rain''...

In 1978, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris held the exhibition "Les Temps des Gares" with the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, the National Railway Museum in York, and the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology in Milan.

In 2008, Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery held an exhibition entitled: "Art in the Age of Steam."

• As the main subject of a painting, sculpture, or photograph

Trains in specific artworks

The railway station of Saint Lazare in Paris by Claude Monet

The following list is in chronological order, oldest to youngest:

• "Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway", by J. M. W. Turner, 1844
• "The Railway Station," by William Powell Frith, 1862
• "The Travelling Companions", by Augustus Egg, 1862
• "Lordship Lane Station", by Camille Pissarro, c. 1870
• "The Railway", by Édouard Manet, 1872
• "The railway station of Saint Lazare in Paris", by Claude Monet, c. 1877
• "Le Pont de l'Europe", by Gustave Caillebotte, 1880
• "Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct of the Arc River Valley", by Paul Cézanne, 1882-1885
• "The Lineman", by L A Ring, 1884
• "The Anxious Journey", by Giorgio de Chirico, 1913
• "Railroad Sunset", by Edward Hopper, 1929
• "Time Transfixed", by René Magritte, 1938

Artists specialising in trains

In the United Kingdom the Guild of Railway Artists is a group of painters of railway subjects.

See also

• Bridges in art
• Landscape art
• Marine art

References

• Art in the Age of Steam, Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool, 10–18 April 2008
• "Les Temps des Gares." Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou Centre de Creation Industrielle. 1978.
• Painting trains: Full steam ahead, Tom Lubbock, The Independent, 30 April 2008, pp. 12–13
• Tomoki Akimaru, "Cézanne and the Steam Railway (1)～(7)", 2012

External links

Media related to Trains in art at Wikimedia Commons