The Anarchist Who Put Pointillism in a Coal Mine | VERSO

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:01]Maximilien Luce learned pointillism, the technique of [music] building images from thousands of tiny dots of pure color.

[00:00:08]He used it [music] to paint leisure, like everyone else.

[00:00:12]Then he stopped.

[00:00:14]He pointed [music] the technique at coal mines, steel foundries, and construction sites instead.

[00:00:20]Luce was a committed anarchist. [music] In July 1894, the French president was assassinated by an anarchist.

[00:00:28]The police [music] arrested anyone with ties to the movement.

[00:00:32]They arrested Luce.

[00:00:34]He spent 42 days [music] in prison before being acquitted.

[00:00:38]From inside the cell, he made a series of drawings documenting life there.

[00:00:43]Foundry at Charleroi [music] came 2 years later in 1896.

[00:00:48]Workers pour molten iron in a Belgian [music] steel plant.

[00:00:51]The pointillist dots, which an impressionist hands meant soft light and summer parks, here become sparks, heat, fire.

[00:00:59]The same technique, [music] a different world.

[00:01:02]In 1940, when the Vichy government [music] barred Jewish artists from exhibitions, Luce resigned from the presidency of the Society of Independent Artists in protest. [music] He was not Jewish.

[00:01:14]He resigned anyway.

[00:01:17]He died in February 1941.

[00:01:20]His paintings [music] are some of the few pointillist works that never forgot where most people actually spent [music] their days.