painting
Return of the Miners
Constantin Meunier
About this work
Object details
- TitleReturn of the Miners
- Mediumoil on canvas
- Measurements159 × 115 cm
- Inventory number2698
- Inscriptionslower right: C Meunier
More about this work
In 1880, the author Camille Lemonnier wrote a series of articles about Belgium for the journal Le Tour du monde. He asked various artists to supply the illustrations, among them Constantin Meunier and Xavier Mellery. He crisscrossed the country in their company. It was then that Meunier discovered the Borinage region, which was to provide him with inspiration for many years. In 1888 Lemonnier’s La Belgique was published in book form, with a dozen engravings after drawings by Meunier. In his drawings, paintings and sculptures the artist documented the world of coal with almost scholarly precision. He studied every aspect of the industrial landscape, and conscientiously recorded the daily work in the mines. He also portrayed the men, women and children who had to spend part of their lives in the darkness underground. They were the heroes of the modern age.
Return of the miners is a fascinating example of his work. Three miners, two men and a woman, are going home after their work. They are monumental figures and are placed ostentatiously in the foreground. Stretched out in the background is the lower-lying mine landscape, with the red roofs of the cottages in the coron, the Walloon word for cité ouvrière or miner’s village and the smoking chimneys and slagheaps of the mines. The miners are highly characterised. The central figure is dignified and self-assured. He is barely paying any attention to the others walking along with him, even though they appear to be having a lively conversation. The light falls on their backs, and with the contrasts of light and dark passages the artist creates a strong three-dimensional effect that gives the figures volume and a distinguished appearance. The palette is almost monochrome, emphasising the dirt and monotony of their surroundings. Splashes of colour flicker here and there: the bright red of the roofs, the blue and yellow walls of the houses in the middle ground, the glimpses of blue sky between the clouds. Everything is painted with a loose and nervous, almost Impressionist hand.
Meunier depicted the subject of miners going home after their work on several occasions, each time with minor alterations in both the composition and the detailing of the background. Despite the differences in number and poses, the principal figures always have the same heroic look. They are clearly all based on the same models. There is a similar scene in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels (inv. no. 10000/173). The painting Return of the miners that was exhibited at the 1925 Salon of Contemporary Art in Antwerp is now in a private collection. The printroom of the Brussels museum also has a charcoal drawing of the mine landscape titled The red roofs of Pâturages (inv. no.10000/326). Pâturages was a typical coalmining community in the Borinage where Vincent van Gogh spent some time before leaving for Wasmes, also in the province of Henegouwen (Hainaut), to become a lay preacher.
References
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