Monet's Paris

That same year, Monet painted the Church of St Germain l’Auxerrois from a balcony in the Louvre. Rather than studying the art within the museum, Monet looks out and down to the people in the square in front of the church.

Inspired by the fair, Monet went in search of urban subjects to paint. His cityscapes from this period show an artist attentive to modern life.

St Lazare Station

A few years later, in 1877, Monet painted a dozen canvases of St Lazare Station in central Paris. He was so intent on depicting the station, that he rented a studio nearby. You can see three of these paintings here, all of which focus on trains arriving into the station.

Monet was consciously choosing a modern subject; although trains had appeared in paintings before, they were not usually the main subject as they were not considered picturesque.

In this view of the station, Monet plays with the conventions of landscape, with the roof standing in for the sky, and machine-generated steam creating irregular shapes where you might expect trees.

Move to the suburbs

Monet and his family had settled in the suburb of Argenteuil in 1871. Northwest of central Paris, the suburb was linked to the capital by both road and the railway terminating at St Lazare Station. 

Monet used his landscape painter's fascination with nature’s variety and changeable weather to make his pictures of suburban Argenteuil more interesting.

Here, he captures the pleasure boats on the Seine that drew tourists to Argenteuil in the summer months.

During a famously snowy winter, he painted 18 views of Argenteuil blanketed in snow. Many of them, like this work, show his street – the boulevard Saint-Denis – leading down from the railway station to the river Seine. Monet sacrifices details in favour of atmosphere.