The Pile Drivers

In 1902 and 1903, on a quay of the Seine at Billancourt, on the western edge of Paris, crews were sinking piles for new foundations, and the work was done by hand. A team hauled together on a bundle of ropes to lift a heavy weight up a tall wooden upright, then let it fall onto the pile. Here the ropes fan out from the top of the post to a line of bare-chested men leaning back in step, red sashes at their waists. Two others sit apart in the foreground, resting, one of them smoking. Across the river, factory chimneys trail smoke. Luce, who wanted a fairer society, gave these labourers a canvas almost two metres wide and built it the old studio way, with posed models and preparatory studies, as if it were a history painting.