Train
Edward Mitchell Bannister
ca. 1875-1880
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Frederick and Joan Slatsky
Accession Number
1983.95.107
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
bridgetrainriver
About this artwork
Edward Bannister’s painting shows a train cutting through a rural landscape, where a railroad trestle interrupts the flow of the stream below. These familiar signs of progress in the nineteenth-century landscape highlight a concern shared by many of Bannister’s fellow painters, who worried that industrialization would soon destroy their nation’s natural beauty.