Workers at Montmartre

Pinkas was the main representative of realism along with his contemporaries Karel Purkyně and Viktor Barvitius. Pinkas stayed in Paris, or rather France, from 1853 to 1865, being it his longest stay abroad. He was an eyewitness of the grandiose transformation of Paris and its reconstruction led by Baron Haussmann. Pinkas’s painting Workers at Montmartre is one of his key works. Not only is the topic remarkable, but also its rendering and composition. Nearly all the figures turn their backs to the spectator, being anonymous and face-free. Moreover, the painting is an important document describing the transformation of the place which would play a key role in the world of art during the upcoming decades.