| The Railway | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Artist | Édouard Manet |
| Year | 1873 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Location | National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. |
| Dimensions | 36 3⁄4 in × 45 1⁄8 in |
| 111.5 cm × 93.3 cm | |
| Famous Paintings by Manet | |
| Le déjeuner sur l’herbe | |
| Olympia | |
| Nana | |
| A Bar at the Folies-Bergère | |
| The Balcony | |
| The Fifer | |
| The Railway | |
| The Spanish Singer | |
| The Old Musician | |
| Complete Works |
The Railway, by Edouard Manet, is an 1873 painting which is popularly known as the Gare Saint-Lazare. The painting is dominated by 2 figures: a middle-aged woman and a little girl. It is one of Manet’s imperative paintings.
The woman posing in the painting is Victorine Meurent, who also posed for Manet’s most astounding pictures: Luncheon on the Grass and the Olympia. In this painting, she sits behind a tall iron fence holding an open book and a sleeping puppy. To her left, a little girl watches a train passing beneath them.
Artistic Techniques
It is most likely that Manet made the drawings of the location outdoors, and later carried out his painting in a studio. He laid lights and darks beside each other, creating bold contrasts that challenged conventions of shade and subtleness. The contrasts are found throughout the painting, neutralizing and flattening the composition.
Manet sustained the idea of 3 dimensionality on a flat surface while banishing modeling. The technique defied the customary way of understanding a picture where deep space is ignored. It also compresses the foreground into a narrow focus.