Cornfields near Tring Station, Hertfordshire,

1847

De Wint captures the encroachment of technology on pastoral land in his depiction of a railroad cutting through the cornfields of Hertfordshire. Tring Station is visible on the horizon, and the strip of white that bifurcates the fields is the chalk terrain that was cut open in order to lay the London-Birmingham Railway in the 1830s. As the rail system rapidly expanded across Britain, it produced new ways for people and goods to move across the country and new ways of viewing the land. Although depicted from within the fields themselves, the sweeping view is perhaps indicative of the panoramic vistas afforded passengers on a rapidly moving train.