The Forge

Three powerful smiths labor at a forge, one gripping the glowing iron with tongs while another swings his hammer at the top of its arc, their muscular bodies and concentrated effort filling the canvas. Goya paints the scene with broad, vigorous strokes and dark, earthy color, monumentalizing ordinary manual work. Now in the Frick, the Forge gives heroic weight to common laborers rather than gods or kings - the heat, the strain, and the raw physical force of men at work rendered with a directness that looks ahead to the realism of the century to come.