Ankunft des Normandie-Zuges, Gare Saint-Lazare

In 1877 Monet did something no serious painter was expected to do. He chose the modern railway station as his subject. He took a small flat near the Gare Saint-Lazare, the terminus linking Paris to Normandy where he had learned to paint outdoors, and he reportedly persuaded the station to hold trains and stoke up extra steam so he could study the light through it. He made about a dozen views of the place. This one, showing the Normandy train pulling in under the great glass-and-iron shed, was among eight he rushed to finish for the third Impressionist exhibition that spring. Look for the blue coats of the waiting crowd dissolving into the vapour.