Pancorbo: Passing Train

Darío de Regoyos was the most significant Spanish Post-Impressionist painter, who spent years in Belgium absorbing the lessons of Neo-Impressionism before returning to document the landscapes of his native Basque Country and northern Spain. This 1901 painting of a passing train at Pancorbo — a dramatic rocky pass on the railway between Madrid and the Basque coast — captures modernity erupting through an ancient landscape. The train was a potent symbol of Spanish modernization, and Regoyos was one of the first Spanish painters to embrace it as a subject. The Pancorbo pass had also attracted Romantic painters a century earlier for its dramatic scenery.

Regoyos uses a divided, flickering brushstroke derived from his Neo-Impressionist training, applying small strokes of contrasting colour that give the surface a vibrant, optically active quality. The train cuts diagonally through the composition, its smoke echoing the mountainous forms. The palette is energetic and saturated.