For the machine meant the conquest of horizontal space. It also meant a sense of that space which few people had experienced before — the succession and superimposition of views, the unfolding of landscape in flickering surfaces as one was carried swiftly past it, and an exaggerated feeling of relative motion (the poplars nearby seeming to move faster than the church spire across the field) due to parallax. The view from the train was not the view from the horse. It compressed more motifs into the same time. Conversely, it left less time in which to dwell on any one thing. Robert Hughes
About This Quote

The train was a machine for carrying people and goods. Passengers and goods were transported and thus the train had a function. The train also made space for people to see the world differently than they would on horseback, as it slowed down time and made space for people to pay attention to more objects at once. While on horseback, you may only see one object at a time. The train is like a machine that makes it possible for people to focus on more objects at once, and thus see the world differently.

Source: The Shock Of The New

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