The Passing of the Train

Regoyos y Valdés, Darío de
Ribadesella, 1857 - Barcelona, 1913
The Passing of the Train, 1902 (El paso del tren)
Signed lower right: 'D. de Regoyos'
Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection on loan to the Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga
Oil on panel
35 x 55 cm
CTB.1995.36
Artwork history
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Widow of the artist, 1915.
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Aras Jáuregui Collection, 1965.
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Private Collection, Madrid.
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Barcino Art, Barcelona, 1995.
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Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection.
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-Benet, R.: Darío de Regoyos. El impresionismo y más allá del impresionismo. Barcelona, 1944, p. 68, lám. 29.
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-Trives, E.: ”El pintor de Ribadesella”. ABC. May 24, 1957.
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-Maragall, J. A.: História de la Sala Parés. Barcelona, 1975 , p. 340.
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-Puente, J. de la y San Nicolás, J.: Regoyos. Barcelona, 1988. Los genios de la pintura española, vol. 19, p. 90, lám. 34, lám.
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-De Canaletto a Kandinsky. Obras maestras de la colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Llorens Serra, Tomàs (ed.). [Exhib. Cat. Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza]. Madrid, Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, 1996, n. 73, p. 192. [Sheet by Juan San Nicolás].
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-Calvo Serraller, F.: Las cien mejores obras del siglo XX. Historia visual de la pintura española. Madrid, 2001, p. 24, lám.
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-Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza. Arnaldo, Javier (ed.). 2 vols. Madrid, Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2004, vol. 2, p. 182, lám. p. 183 [Sheet by Juan San Nicolás].
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-García Guatas, M.: “Paisajes con ferrocarril en la pintura de Regoyos”. Goya, n.º 299, Madrid, March-April 2004 , p. 121, lám. p. 119.
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-Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga. Colección. Catálogo razonado, Fundación Palacio de Villalón, Málaga, 2014. P. 366-367 (Sheet by Juan San Nicolás).
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-Un món ideal: De Van Gogh a Gauguin i Vasarely. Col.lecció Carmen Thyssen. Espai Carmen Thyssen, Sant Feliu de Guíxols, 2017. p. 54, 55, 146, 147, 182 y 183. [Sheet by Juan San Nicolás]. [Exib. Cat.]
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-“Influencers” en el arte. De Van Goyen al “Pop Art”. Museu Carmen Thyssen Andorra.[Exhib. Cat. Museu Carmen Thyssen Andorra], Andorra, 2019, p. 50, 51, 134 y 135 [Sheet by Juan San Nicolás]
Expert report
The Passing of the Train is a scene set in Ategorrieta, near San Sebastián, and was painted in the autumn of the year in which the artist moved to that city from Irún.
The autumn atmosphere is rendered perfectly by the relative absence of leaves on the trees, while the lack of sunlight means that there are no shadows. Regoyos loved the Basque Country for the muted light which allowed him to capture it in all its variations and to find in nature the best model for his oils. As an Impressionist, he believed that an artist could paint different scenes without having to travel: he only needed to observe changes in the light or the weather. From his earliest days as a painter he was especially attracted to the railway and painted dozens of pictures on this theme, demonstrating in all of them great skill in capturing the steam produced by trains (as this picture shows) and using it to indicate the motion of the train, without needing to include the engine. In this respect, the artist may have wished to avoid the physical presence of the locomotive shattering the landscape’s natural harmony and considered wooden carriages less discordant.
This way of ordering the landscape composition is also seen in a later picture, The Port of Pasajes, in which Regoyos painted only steam and rails to indicate the train’s recent passing.
Finally, Regoyos also captured in this work a sense of everyday life through the inclusion of the two women watching the train as it passes, in turn suggesting curiosity or a wish to travel, and the monotony of life outside the city.
Juan San Nicolás