German Realist Adolph Menzel shows the reality of the suffering, hardship, and fundamental flaws of the Industrial Revolution through his painting, The Iron Rolling Mill. The Industrial Revolution is a period of history where principal adaptation eventuated in agriculture, textile, iron production in Britain and later spread throughout all of Europe (Montagna). Menzel was able to credibly capture the spirit of the revolution because he was a supporter of the Revolution in the 1800s (With 196). The Industrial Revolution in Britain amassed a huge amount of manufactured power that changed European civilization and questioned customary practices around the world (Koot).
During this era, the population in Europe inflated rapidly due to a decline in the death rate, growth in the birth rate, the eradication of plagues, and an increase in the amount of food available (Montagna). With the adoption of the factory system and the large population, many in the working and middle class moved to settlements nearby factories to survive and provide for their families. (Veblen 181). Due to the vast number of people, cities and towns were often packed and allowing unforeseen consequences ranging from poverty to sanitation problems, all of which affected the health of the factory workers. The citizens of the working class underwent many hardships while working in the factories during the Industrial Revolution, in which Adolph Menzel's paintings reflect
In The Rolling Iron Mill, Menzel shows the disadvantages of the Industrial Revolution in the details of the painting. At first glance, the painting gives off the sense of compaction, where something or someone occupied every space on the canvas. Looking closer, many groups of people are crowding the canvas. Thorstein Veblen states, “Like the population of its neighboring countries, the German population, too, is thoroughly and universally hybrid… such hybrid character created a social class in which the majority participated in the revolution” (Veblen 7). The painting portrays many men and women who were active members of the working class that worked for 14 hours a day.
Along with the issue of population size, many factories and cities during the revolution were polluted and unsanitary (Montagna). For instance, in the upper right corner of the canvas, there are bellows of smoke. The smoke shows how contaminated the factory is as well as the number of people that were exposed. The color scheme Menzel uses in the painting also adds to this effect, as he uses a dark palette to present a gloomy and filthy atmosphere.
Conditions for a laborer in these kinds of factories and mills were not only filthy, but they were exceptional risky and tiring (Thompson). For example, the men handling the iron at the machine are bent back, as if they were fearful of the iron. Menzel’s extreme manipulation of tones and strokes gives the iron and machine a dangerous ambiance. Each man’s forearms are uncovered, and the workers have only an apron as protective gear, and the heat from the iron suggests that many workers were burned and scarred. The laborers also needed to be cautious. On the left of the canvas, two men in blue are depicted carefully taking the iron away from the machine. From the workers’ body posture, it is clear that they are using a large amount of energy to take the iron out carefully. These were some of the many hardships that the working class dealt with in factories.
Menzel showed the reality of the people in the working class, the people who suffered the most during the Revolution. For example, the facial expression and body language of the laborers display no joy or happiness whatsoever. Joseph A. Montagna states, “Manufacturers took a substantial portion of their profits to “plow back” into their business, barely giving the minimum of the profit to their employee.” The majority of citizens in the working class were poverty-stricken, many worked up to fourteen brutal hours per day to earn enough money to survive. The working class stayed below the average per capita income of the society and the development of the poorer groups in society during the Industrial Revolution trailed behind the norm (Teich and Porter). A prime example of this is visible in the painting on the left side, where men are bathing in the open. Menzel puts so much detail into this image to show the poverty that many of the workers of the Industrial Revolution faced. Workers were so impecunious that they could not even afford to even bathe in their homes. They had to bathe in the open of their workplace, which was already contaminated and polluted. As Menzel showed the squalor that the average industrial laborer lived in, he also portrayed the ease of the upper class.
As the workers show no happiness in their labor at the factories, Menzel portrayed the privilege of the upper class by adding a small, but effective detail. On the left back side of the factory, the man wearing a brown suit is separated from the rest of the workers physically. He is most likely the supervisor of the workers because Menzel painted him so that he does not participate in any active part of handling iron. Instead, the man casually is looking around and spectating the laborers. The scene accurately displays the difference between the two classes and their roles in the Industrial Revolution.
Menzel displayed exceptional usage of vibrant and dim colors in his paintings. The main achievement of the Industrial Revolution was a new mentality around production and manufacturing (Teich and Porter). Menzel illustrated the painting so that iron is the centerpiece of the painting. It appeals to the eye, giving off the impression of being hazardous due to vibrant colors and the dim and dark shading of the rest of the painting. By the illustration and coloring, Menzel makes the point that these workers were able to make the Revolution possible, even though many suffered from it (Klingender).
The Iron Rolling Mill, by Adolph Menzel, accurately exhibits the reality that the working class suffered during the Industrial Revolution, ranging from pollution and sanitation problems to the dangers and risk of the machines. Menzel creates such a striking image to depict the harms of the Industrial Revolution so that others could perceive the struggles and hardships that allowed industrialization occur. Though these workers and laborers made the revolution possible, Menzel also wanted to show the treatment of many workers and their suffering that they endured just to survive. The Iron Rolling Mill clearly and precisely describes and reflects the Industrial Revolution’s working class.