Introduction

This book deals with the way in which industrial disputes have been represented in European art between 1870 and 1914 and beyond. Hence, there is a focus on strikes opposing workers and their employer. The works of art are essentially produced by artists who were born and trained in Europe. The period between 1870 and 1914 has been chosen for the purpose of temporal demarcation. It is a kind of Gründungszeit (foundational period) that is characterised by accelerated industrialisation, the emergence of the modern labour movement outside an official role yet being attributed to the trade unions. On the political level, this period begins with the highly revolutionary workers' protest of the Paris Commune (1871), which would scare the bourgeoisie, and which was smothered in considerably more blood by the French army. It ends with the outbreak of World war I.