ABSTRACT

Leon Frederic conceives of pictorial truth as all-inclusive, right down to the defining proletarian detail of the tattoo on the bulging forearm of the bending navvy in the foreground of the left-hand panel. Frederic seems to have wanted to make of Realism something solid and durable—like the art of the churches, perhaps, more than that of the museums—but in both cases, it is the monumental impulse, the ambition to go beyond the mere recording of everyday experience, that is striking. About 1895, the Belgian painter Frederic created a remarkable and ambitious triptych, The Stages of a Worker's Life. The Stages of a Worker's Life is far from occupying a unique place in its creator's oeuvre. Frederic, who was once the best-known painter in Belgium, created several triptychs, several large-scale series, as well as many individual paintings dealing with the subject of peasants and workers during the course of his long and productive career.