Constantin Emile Meunier

Belgian, 1831-1905

Puis le hasard me mène dans le pays noir, le pays industriel. Je suis frappé par cette beauté tragique et farouche. Je sens en moi comme une révélation d’une œuvre de vie à créer. Une immense pitié me prend. Je ne pensais pas encore à la sculpture. J’avais so ans et je sentais en moi des forces inconnues, comme une nouvelle jeunesse, et bravement je me mis à l’œuvre. – Meunier

The port of Antwerp, along with its mines and foundries, provided the Belgian Meunier with most of his subjects, as he regularly depicted its miners and founders. Devoted to the notion of making art to celebrate and dignify the working people, Meunier conceived of many of his individual works as contributing to grand monumental groups in public settings.

His emergence as an artist coincided with the increasing politicisation of the working classes throughout Europe, reflecting larger social realities and focusing on the workers who had been central to Belgium’s economic and industrial boom.

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