About this artwork
Manet painted The Railway in 1872-73, at his studio in the rue de Saint-Petersbourg, near the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris. He was 40 years old and had just returned to painting after the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune, which had destroyed much of the city he knew. The Railway is one of the first major paintings of post-war Paris, and it is one of Manet's most enigmatic works.
The painting shows two figures in front of a black iron fence. A woman sits in the foreground, dressed in blue with a white collar and a black hat, a book in her lap, a sleeping puppy at her feet. A girl stands beside her, facing away from the viewer, looking through the iron fence at the railway tracks below. Behind the fence, clouds of steam rise from the trains, obscuring the station. The background is almost entirely hidden by the fence and the steam, giving the painting a claustrophobic, enclosed quality.
The relationship between the two figures is ambiguous. Are they mother and daughter? A nanny and her charge? Manet does not tell us. The woman looks up from her book, her expression neutral. The girl is absorbed in the view through the fence. The two figures do not interact, and the space between them is filled with the black bars of the fence, which divide the canvas into a grid of vertical lines.
The Railway was exhibited at the Salon of 1874, the same year as the first Impressionist exhibition. Manet had been invited to participate in the Impressionist show but had declined, preferring to exhibit at the official Salon. The painting was poorly received. Critics complained that the composition was fragmented, the figures were disconnected, and the background was invisible. The painting was too modern for the Salon audience, and not modern enough for the Impressionists.
The model for the woman was Victorine Meurent, who had also posed for The Luncheon on the Grass and Olympia. She was a painter in her own right, and she would exhibit at the Salon in 1876, the same year as Manet. The girl is unidentified. The setting is the garden of Manet's studio, which looked out onto the Gare Saint-Lazare. The iron fence and the steam are the only indications of the railway; the station itself is invisible, suggested by the clouds of steam that rise behind the fence.
Oil on canvas, 93 by 111 centimeters. Manet painted with a smooth, controlled touch, building the figures in layers of warm and cool tones. The blue dress is painted in strokes of cobalt blue and white, with the fabric suggested by the direction of the brushwork. The iron fence is painted in sharp, geometric strokes of black, which create a grid pattern across the background. The steam is painted in loose, translucent strokes of white and gray, which dissolve into the dark background. The surface has the carefully worked quality of a painting built over many sessions.
The horizontal format and cool palette make this print work well in a living room, office, or study. The blues, whites, and blacks pair with white walls, modern furniture, and rooms with an urban or minimalist design. The 18x24 size is the best choice, as the composition needs width to read. The painting has a cool, enigmatic quality that suits rooms with a modern or intellectual mood.
The painting entered the National Gallery of Art in Washington in 1956, gifted by Horace Havemeyer in memory of his mother, Louise W. Havemeyer.
This is a public domain artwork, from the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The image is released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 18x24 inches, framed or unframed.
