The railway in landscape painting of the 19th–20th centuries: the evolution of the image

The article discusses the evolution of the artistic interpretation of the railway in landscape painting from Romanticism to the present day. The aim of the research is to identify the logic of the interaction between art and technological progress through the analysis of the transformation of the image of the railway in the art of the 19th and 20th centuries. The subject of the study is not only the image of the railway itself but also the artistic techniques through which painting captured and reinterpreted the interaction between the natural and the technical. The focus is on the dynamics of this interaction: from open conflict and disturbing intrusion to harmonious coexistence, ideological heroization, and finally, nostalgic reflection. Particular importance is given to the analysis of specific works of art, examining pieces from both Russian and Western European art. The methodological foundation consists of a comprehensive art historical analysis of the works and a comparative method that allows for a detailed characterization of key pieces and highlights differences in the interpretation of the railway image across different artistic expressions. The novelty of the work lies in the fact that for the first time, the depiction of a specific technical object in landscape is considered as a genre where artistic understanding of the interaction between nature and technology occurs. The image of the railway is traced throughout the entire history of the technical object itself—from its emergence in the 19th century to the present day—allowing for the observation of its transformation in various styles and directions. The main stages of this process are characterized: conflict with nature and external effectiveness in Romanticism; the organic incorporation of technical elements into the national landscape in Realism; the transmission of immediate impressions from the functioning of technical objects in Impressionism; materiality and psychological tension in landscapes including technology in Post-Impressionism; the transformation of the railway into a tool for building a new artistic reality in Modernism; its ideological heroization in Socialist Realism; neutral presence as an element of industrial landscape in the art of the 1970s and 1980s; and finally, nostalgic reflection in contemporary art. The conclusions show that the image of the railway has undergone a journey from a striking intrusion into nature to a fully-fledged element of artistic reality, becoming an indicator of how art has navigated technological progress and transformed it into a subject of cultural memory.