The railway station, Redfern

The subject of this work is the old Redfern Station, situated on Devonshire Street, just south of where Sydney's Central Station is now located. Painted three years after Arthur Streeton first visited Sydney, 'The railway station, Redfern' is an atmospheric study of rain and light. It falls within the tradition of tonal paintings of wet urban scenes which existed alongside the nationalistic evocations of sunlight and heat in Australian painting of this period. Streeton's choice of modern railway subject matter and his evocative approach were influenced by French and British impressionism as well as the decorative, asymmetrical design and flattened picture plane of Japanese woodcuts.