Arbeiter an einem Hausbau

Arbeiter an einem Hausbau (Workers at a Building Site) of 1889 is an unusual subject for Klinger—social realism rather than classical mythology or psychological allegory. The depiction of manual laborers connects to the European tradition of labor subjects that Courbet pioneered with The Stone Breakers in 1849 and that developed through Millet's agricultural workers and Menzel's Iron Rolling Mill. Klinger's 1889 date places it during Bismarck's anti-socialist laws and intense public debate about the conditions of industrial workers. Whether Klinger's treatment was sympathetic, objective, or aestheticized is unclear from the title alone—he may have been drawn to the workers' bodies in motion as much as to their social situation. The Belvedere in Vienna holds this panel as part of a significant Klinger collection that also includes The Judgment of Paris and the Weiblicher Studienkopf.

Oil on panel with a solid, objective handling suited to the documentary character of the subject. Panel provides a hard ground for the firm, direct brushwork that physical labor demands. The composition exploits the drama of scaffolding, stone, and human figures in motion against the sky.