Günter Dinhobl (Hrsg.): Sonderband 7. Eisenbahn/Kultur – Railway/Culture (2004)
II. Die Wahrnehmungen von Raum / The perceptions of space - Jill Murdoch: The Railway in Arcadia: An Approach to Modernity in British Visual Culture
Jill Murdoch tion of ornament in anything concerned with railroads or near them. Better bury gold in the embankments than put it in ornaments on the stations.’6 Nonetheless, though it may have been contested, in the city there was expression of what commentators generally expect of the spirit of the railway age. One writer, talking of Euston station, has stated that: “Art invariably embodies the spirit of an age and the spirit of the nineteenth century was one of exuberance, grandeur, self-confidence, and self-esteem”,'7 a statement that ignores any and all complexities and subtleties contained within the concept of the spirit of the age and its artistic expression. The conflict between city and country is represented precisely in this: on the one hand the self- confident and exuberant artistic presentation of the railway in its station architecture, and on the other a fearful obfuscation of modernity and avoidance of the railway as subject in fine art. It was not until the social disruption and unrest of the first half of the nineteenth century were calmed through a variety of political accommodations that a new confidence in their class and political identity allowed the middle classes to have an interest in art 16 R u s k i n , John: The Seven Lamps of Architecture. New York 1989 pp. 121-122. 77 Richards, Jeffrey - Mackenzie, John M.: The Railway Station: a Social History. Oxford 1986, p. 20 (my emphasis). 132 Illustration 8: The Railway Station by William Frith, 1853, oil on canvas.
