COHASSET - As divisive political issues go, the Greenbush Line is particularly close to the creative souls of 10 artists whose work hangs in the Dillon Gallery of South Shore Art Center.
It's not far from their paintings and photographs, either. Rumbling through Cohasset a dozen times each weekday, the train passes several yards from the gallery's windows.
"The first couple of times it came by, paintings fell off the wall," Valerie Forte Vitali, who teaches painting and drawing at the art center, said of the train's maiden voyages last fall.
Vitali is among the artists whose work makes up "All Aboard - The Train Show," an exhibit in the Dillon Gallery that filters public policy through paintings and photographs. The images range from political to pastoral, all making a statement in some way on the commuter rail line that has been fervently opposed or warmly embraced by residents of South Shore communities like Cohasset, through which the Greenbush trains pass.
In "Cohasset Conversation," Michael Weymouth's aerial photograph with superimposed word balloons, casual exchanges reflect the division between those who live close enough for their voices to be drowned out by passing trains and those near the shore whose property values may rise because of the Greenbush Line.
"Homeward Bound," a painting by Janet Flavell Collins, depicts a commuter's-eye view from the train of a beautiful landscape reaching to a distant horizon.
"I like that the art center did this," said Margot Cheel, an aerial photographer in Cohasset who attended the show's Friday night openings of "All Aboard" and "Fascinating Rhythms" in the adjacent Bancroft Gallery, which together drew hundreds to the art center - a much larger crowd than for most first nights. "It helps focus on what the train is about - more than just driving along, seeing the train, and saying, 'This is progress.' "
Viewing the Greenbush Line through the eyes of the artists, she said, "helps us see it in a broader way than we would have otherwise. It enhances it."
Tom Gruber, a special assistant to the Cohasset town manager for Greenbush affairs, also was at the opening, and paused in front of Weymouth's "Breakfast in West Hingham." In the painting, a couple sits at a table and the woman glances up at a passing train. The head of a commuter on the Greenbush Line is framed in the window looking out from the couple's home.
"It does make a statement," said Gruber, who said he is politically noncommittal on the Greenbush Line because of his job.
The show, he said, "reflects all thoughts." And that reflects Cohasset, where votes on the Greenbush Line have been fairly evenly divided between opponents and supporters, but opinions range widely, Gruber said.
Nancy Colella came up with the idea for the show a few months ago. One of her paintings - "Where is Everybody?" - depicts a car with row after row of empty seats.
The quick turnaround meant the artists had to create on deadline. The paint was still wet on "Breakfast in West Hingham" when Weymouth brought it to the gallery just in time for the show.
And for some artists, the invitation to contribute meant figuring out where they stood on a topic that so many friends and neighbors had staked out resolute positions on long ago.
"Originally, I didn't have a strong opinion on the train," said Judy St. Peter, who has five paintings in the show. "It forced me to educate myself more about the Greenbush."
She spoke with people and dug up old copies of local newspapers to read coverage of the controversy. The result, she said, was that "each painting depicts a different aspect."
The Greenbush Line drops below ground level as it cuts through a community in "Little Dig," but "Night Train" evokes a more peaceful scene, showing the lead car emerge from a lonely setting.
The gallery included an artist's statement next to each set of paintings or photographs.
"I was against the train coming into our community until tracks were being laid in Cohasset," wrote Kimberlee Alemian, who explained in her statement that the rail line made her remember taking trains as a child in Germany. "Riding the rails for the first time this January was a thrill. . . . One of our oldest modes of transportation, I welcome its presence."
Peggy Roth Major, whose photo "Then & Now" juxtaposes trains old and new, saw in the exhibit a way for visitors to see the Greenbush Line in its entirety.
"It gives you the whole perspective, I think, literally in all types of media and all types of viewpoints politically," she said.
Bryan Marquard can be reached at bmarquard@globe.com.
