Proletarians 1900

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen sketched "Proletarians," capturing the restless energy of a crowd on the move. Here we have a modern rendering of a motif as old as civilization: the masses, the throng, the multitude. Think back to ancient friezes depicting battle scenes, religious processions, or scenes of civic unrest. Observe how Steinlen renders the faces—a mixture of determination, anxiety, and exhaustion, universal emotions etched across time. This recalls similar feelings represented in the figures of the Hellenistic sculpture, "Laocoön and His Sons," expressing agony and helplessness against insurmountable odds. This archetype of the wandering soul, or the collective struggle for survival, finds new resonance in Steinlen's modern context. The crowd surges forward, driven by forces both visible and unseen, their hopes and fears intermingling like threads in a tapestry. The symbolic power lies not just in their physical movement, but in the emotional undercurrent that binds them. It evokes a profound sense of shared destiny.