Jacques ‐ Joseph Tissot s Waiting For The Train - 1842 Words

This essay will argue that Jacques†Joseph Tissot (later James Tissot) depicts modern life through Waiting for the Train (Willesden Junction) (1871-1873, Dunedin Public Art Gallery) by painting the interaction of a young middle-class woman and the modern environment of a London train station. Tissot (1836-1902) was a French Realist who broke away from the traditions of religious and classical painting through the style of rigorous naturalism which was common in the nineteenth century. He paints life as it is in the modern era, depicting the social and cultural norms of the time. The social and cultural norms of the nineteenth century are seen in Tissot s Waiting for the Train (Willesden Junction) where the finely dressed upper-middle class mingle, waiting for the train at a London Station. During this essay I will make the conclusion that Tissot depicts modern life through the formal elements of Waiting for the Train (Willesden Junction) which include composition, colour, line, texture, scale, proportion, balance, contrast, and rhythm. I will then go on to make a stylistic analysis explaining how Waiting for the Train (Willesden Junction) fits into the stylistic category of Modernism and then the more specific category of Realism. Finally, I will analyse how Tissot depicts modern life by discussing elements of influence including the writings of Charles Baudelaire and the artwork of Édouard Manet. In James Tissot s work, Waiting for the Train (Willesden Junction) the