The Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877

Billowing clouds of steam fill a train shed, its glass-and-iron roof letting in pale light above locomotives, surrounding buildings, and small figures scattered along the platforms. The scene is built from loose strokes of blue, gray, and ochre that blur smoke, structure, and sky into a single hazy atmosphere. This is Claude Monet's The Gare Saint-Lazare, painted in 1877 in oil, now held at the Musée d'Orsay. Monet, who lived from 1840 to 1926, worked within Impressionism and also painted Impression, Sunrise. Worth noticing is how the arched roof dissolves into the smoke, letting the architecture seem to float rather than stand firm above the trains and travelers below.