The Saint-Lazare Station

When he painted The Saint-Lazare Station, Monet had just left Argenteuil to settle in Paris. After several years of painting in the countryside, he turned to urban landscapes. At a time when the critics Duranty and Zola exhorted artists to paint their own times, Monet tried to diversify his sources of inspiration and longed to be considered, like Manet, Degas and Caillebotte, a painter of modern life. In 1877, settling in the Nouvelle Athènes area, Claude Monet asked for permission to work in the Gare Saint-Lazare that marked its boundary on one side.