Epilogue
1895. Oil on canvas.On display elsewhere
Social demands began to make their way from reality into Spanish art starting in the 19th century, particularly as a result of the Industrial Revolutions and the profound changes they brought to labor conditions. These shifts were artistically reflected in works that dignified workers´ concerns, often depicting scenes inspired by labor strikes at blast furnaces.
Cutanda found in the strikes a pressing and timely subject that had brought social issues to the forefront of Spanish public consciousness. He drew especially from the strike declared on May 13, 1890, which was triggered by the dismissal of five workers from the La Orconera company in Bilbao for their participation in organizing the May Day celebrations. In the early years, employers sought to suppress such organizing efforts, frequently leading to the outbreak of strikes. This marked the beginning of a new era of labor unrest, with successive episodes of industrial action in the years that followed. These events catalyzed the organization of workers in the province of Biscay and facilitated the rise of the Socialist Party, a leading actor in these developments.
Cutanda’s painting A Workers´ Strike in Biscay (P7793), exhibited at the 1892 International Fine Arts Exhibition in Madrid, was awarded a first-class medal. The May Day holiday had only recently been established in 1889 as International Workers’ Day.
Cutanda specialized in themes related to labor struggles for illustrated journals, influenced by the painter and illustrator Dudley Hardy, whose now-lost 1889 painting The Dock Strike served as a model. In search of visual and social references, Cutanda visited factories in Le Creusot (Bourgogne-Franche-Comté), Bordeaux, and Bilbao from late 1890 or early 1891 onward. There, he dedicated himself to studying both the environments of industrial labor and the workers themselves—not merely their physical appearances or tasks, but also their roles within the broader context of social struggle. His aim, as he stated, was "to be able to characterize the anarchist, the measured worker, the worker who, lacking his own will, is led by the more extreme ones, and so many others who make up the nuanced collective of the working class."
This pursuit of faithfully representing workers according to their social consciousness was entirely novel in Spain.
The painting’s title is telling: these working conditions culminate in death. A man, solemn-faced, carries a heavy burden from one end of the scene—presumably the body of a deceased worker. A child looks on, holding what appears to be the dead man’s clothes, while another man at the far right watches with resigned expression, hand to his neck. The work denounces the vulnerability of children faced with the harsh realities of labor and their exploitation. The presence of revolution is suggested by a single figure: an armed man in a blue jacket—the only colorful element in an otherwise dark, ochre-toned palette typical of Cutanda’s work—raising his arm in a gesture of assistance or protest.
Barón, Javier, 'Vicente Cutanda. Una huelga de obreros en Vizcaya'. Arte y transformaciones sociales en España (1885-1910), Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2024, p.373-378 nº.275 [o.r: nº.273, nº.274]
