Critical Analysis Of Gustave Dore's Over London By Rail

As Bela Lugosi once said, “People, chained by monotony, afraid to think, clinging to certainties…they live like ants”. The painting Over London by Rail, by Gustave Dore portrays a side of the Industrial Revolution that was disregarded by many during the time. The upper class often neglected the harsh working conditions in which most of the people lived in. This mechanism of change that the revolution had become drastically transformed people’s traditional lives that were once in a close to perfect harmony with nature. The fast moving industrialization of the world made individuality negligible as huge amounts of goods were made and thousands were made to work for the machines. Notably, through the use of color, texture, and other elements Dore,

His artistic technique and elements he included in the painting reveal a lot more than what it looks like at first sight. Many themes of the Industrial Revolution such as nature and the reign of machines are referred to in the hidden meaning behind the way the artist build up the composition. First off, the lack of nature is one of the first indications about this time period. By not including any element of nature such as trees or grass the painter expresses the way wildlife was left apart and not taken care of, almost becoming irrelevant to this industrialism. Another observation that reveals Dore’s message behind the art is the lack of color as the whole painting is in black and white. With the use of black and white, the artist successfully emancipated a dark and gloomy atmosphere conveying the message that color was drained out of people’s lives. Furthermore, color is known to represent happiness and joy of life whereas in the other hand, Dore wants to emphasize that this color was not present anymore as if people didn’t have time to enjoy themselves anymore. Additionally, Over London by Rail seems to have been all painted with a brick texture. These innumerable small bricks drawn throughout the canvas symbolize the monotonous life of the people under their tedious lifestyles loaded with work. Moreover,