Les Batteurs de pieux

Maximilien Luce's 'Les Batteurs de pieux' (The Pile Drivers, 1902) is a labor subject by the committed anarchist painter who found in industrial and construction labor his most characteristic subject matter — the pile drivers' rhythmic, collective labor creating a subject that combined the formal interest of repeated human movement with the social documentation of the working class in physically demanding employment. His engagement with construction labor placed him within the tradition of social realist labor painting while his divisionist technique gave the subject a systematically modern formal treatment.

Luce renders the pile-driving labor with his divisionist technique — the systematic mosaic of color touches building the figures of the workers, the mechanical rhythm of their work, and the construction site's atmosphere with the same methodical approach he brought to all his Neo-Impressionist subjects. His handling of the laborers' physical effort and the specific character of the construction site creates the social documentation that was his primary concern within the systematic formal technique.