Critical Review
Printed in 1969, The Viaduct, Stockport is a typical scene by L.S. Lowry that captures urban life in North West England. Depicting everyday life in Manchester, houses populate the foreground with Lowry’s ‘matchstick-men’ unassumingly going about their daily lives. The stylised figures lack definition and are all almost identical to one another. Often caught in motion, the matchstick figures are a signature feature of Lowry’s prints and have become synonymous with his now iconic style.
Attention is focused on the impressive viaduct, a major pioneering structure of the early railway age, emblematic of urbanisation and industrialisation. A train traversing the railway is captured against columns of smoke exuding from the factories portrayed in the picture’s background. The large structure, composed of a series of arches, towers over the tiny figures, making them seem even smaller and insignificant.
The print reflects Lowry’s interest in industrial landscapes and the quotidian activities of the people that inhabited them. Captured against this backdrop, the matchstick figures blend in with the industrial environment. This dual focus on the industrial and the human is a defining characteristic of Lowry’s style of realism. Like many of Lowry’s urban landscapes, The Viaduct, Stockport centres on the northern industrial working class experience.
