Kley's "Demons of Krupp"

German artist Heinrich Kley is best known for his satirical animal drawings that influenced the work of Walt Disney. But he was also a great painter of industrial subjects. 

In this large oil painting, he portrays gigantic monsters lounging in an industrial space. The puny humans struggle to manage red-hot crucibles of molten metal to feed the giants, who toss them back like glasses of beer.

The creatures, which resemble satyrs or devils, should probably be regarded more as genies or benevolent demons, representing the archaic creative forces that the factories tamed and made to work for their purposes. The image is not meant as a criticism of industry or labor.

If you know Kley’s pen and ink work, it’s not surprising to see such a tour de force of anatomy, but his skills as a painter are a wonderful surprise, too. After his studies in Karlsruhe and Munich, he began as a landscape and genre painter.

He uses a “hatching” style of brushstrokes to describe the muscles, bones, and sagging flesh of each creature. He varies the color of the planes as they turn toward the warm light below or the cool light above. The interior has wonderful atmospheric depth, and the perspective is accurate, with the eye level set just above the heads of a standing human worker.

The painting, “Demons of Krupp,” dates from 1911 and was commissioned by the Krupp family, founder of Krupp Industries. It is part of an exhibition about the Krupp industries currently going on in Germany.

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Thanks, Christoph Heuer.

More about the 'Demons of Krupp' painting
The exhibition "Jahre Krupp" which currently features the painting, through November 4 

Wikipedia on Heinrich Kley

The Drawings of Heinrich Kley (Dover Fine Art)