Peter Erskine's CROMOS_ Solar Spectrum Rainbow Art Original

In 2000, Peter Erskine, ErskineSolarArt.net was Commissioned by the Italian State Railway (Ferrovia dello Stato) to create solar spectrum, rainbow art installations in the Milan, Florence and Rome railway stations and on 30 bullet trains. The project was co-sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as a way to cut fossil fuel emissions by getting Italians out of their cars and onto trains. At four hundred miles long, CROMOS may be the largest artwork ever created.

In the Milano Centrale station, twin 40 foot by 70 foot, living rainbow beams gradually sweep through the station as the Earth turns. Depending on the time of day and season, the rainbows drench shops, trains, travelers and even pigeons in Nature’s most beautiful light. The Solar spectrum beams are created by what are possibly the worlds largest prism array. There are seventy two, four foot wide and eight foot long flat, laser-cut flat prisms, bonded to the arching skylight windows high in the station's roof.

In Rome's Termini Station, forty four, two foot by seven foot, flat, laser-cut prisms are bonded to the station’s 700 foot long, south facing, clerestory windows. An additional twenty prisms, of equal size, are attached to the west entrance windows. These prisms project giant spectrum beams that gradually sweep through the station. The rainbows change color, shape and intensity every hour, day and season of the year.