Gare Saint Lazare & Monet

For Monet fans visiting Paris, getting from Paris to Giverny, even for just a day-trip, is not only easy it is very rewarding and should definitely be done. Interestingly, and perhaps not that surprisingly, the connection between Gare Saint Lazare and Monet goes back to the 1870s. During the winter of 1876/7 Monet painted the station at least seven times, and together these paintings play an important part in the development of Impressionism.

Monet had been living in Argenteuil since 1872, mostly painting the countryside, when he moved to Paris for a few months at the end of 1876. During that winter he rented a studio on the Rue d’Edimbourg and began painting a series of paintings of the the Saint Lazare railway station, including the three interiors of the train shed below, and Le Pont de l’Europe from the tracks of the station. In so doing he shared an interest in urban subjects with the other Impressionists, Caillebotte, Manet and Degas.

Claude Monet, Gare Saint Lazare Ligne d’Auteuil, 1877. Oil on Canvass. 75 cm x 100 cm. © Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Monet’s paintings of the Gare Saint Lazare were included in the third exhibition organised by that group of painters increasingly being known as Impressionists. Monet’s Lazare paintings were thought to be amongst the most original of the paintings on show on Rue Le Peletier in 1877. One of the reasons being, they had few if any, precedents in French painting.

Claude Monet, Gare St Lazare: Ligne de Normandie. 1877. Oil on Canvass. 59.6 cm x 80.2 cm. © Chicago Institute of Art.

Considering what the station would have been like in the 1870s, it is not difficult to understand why the station attracted Monet, who was particularly interested in painting contemporary life. For someone who always sought the changing effects of light and movement, the station with it clouds of steam and altered light from the skylights of the train sheds, in 1877 provided a radical and very modern motif.

Claude Monet, Gare St Lazare Ligne d’Auteuil, 1877. Oil on Canvass. 80.33 cm. x 98.11 cm. © Fogg Art Museum. Harvard University. Cambridge. Massachusetts.

So, when catching the train at Gare Saint Lazare for Giverny, pause for a moment, and consider the station as it might have been for Monet. Click on the link for detailed directions for getting from Paris to Giverny, using various modes of transport.