The Iron Rolling Mill (Modern Cyclopes) is a drama of man and machine. Painted by Aldoph Menzel in 1872-1875, the work is life-size at approximately 5 by 8 feet. The painting brings to life the intense and dangerous environment of an early Industrial Revolution German railroad track factory, with a fiery focus on the iron rolling mill where molten metal is brought through a series of rollers to waiting workers to shape into steel rails. As shadows and steam create demonic shapes, modern eyes might focus on the dangerous working conditions in the early Industrial Age. While this is not wrong, this misses a larger vantage point of the piece that can speak to us today, on the cusp of an age of AI.

The molten metal clawing its way out of the furnace is the most striking danger to the laborers, but note they are mainly barefoot in clogs as they battle with little protection. Just next to the furnace on the lower right, several workers take a break, with a young woman who has brought their lunches. Injuries were commonplace from the unrelenting gears and machines of the enveloping architecture because workplace safety was stuck in an old paradigm of individual responsibility rather than a focus of intentional factory design. The crowded and steam-filled atmosphere caused respiratory diseases and increased transmission of tuberculosis, as did the burning of a newly harnessed fuel, coal. Notice the men on the left washing off soot at the end of their shift.

However, these details would not have struck viewers at the time as much as its vivid documentation of the growing Industrial Revolution. Powerful new machines were transforming economic activity, such as the steam engines depicted here. Workers migrated from agrarian settings where they worked largely alone to new ways of working en mass. I count at least 35 people in the scene, but this factory employed 3,000 workers to produce 10,000 tons of steel for the railways in a typical year.[1] In 1875, Germany produced only about half the steel of Britain, but, as factories like this took off, Germany would emerge as the world leader in steel in just 15 years.[2]

Technological change also brought new economic opportunities. In the 1880s, an average of 130,000 people were leaving Germany. Growing industrial production reduced this outflow to only 20,000 per year in the mid-1890s. Application of industrial techniques to agriculture doubled farm production despite a shift of workers from agrarian to industrial settings. As productivity grew and labor unions organized, the average number of hours worked by industrial laborers declined by 14 percent between 1867 and 1913, all while real income rose rapidly into the 1900s.[3]

The bigger vantage point of this painting is a battle of man versus machine; a heroic depiction of man’s quest to harness the power of new technology. The subtitle, Modern Cyclopes, is a reference to the Greek Cylopes who forged the thunderbolts of Zeus.[4] The men in the painting were forging a new world of tremendous economic growth and vast improvements in standards of living. This is much like our world today, poised on the cusp of an AI revolution, as we struggle to harness it and transform our world. How will we engage in the new year in epic battle to forge a better world?

Special thanks to Ava Bussan and Olivia Lockhart for the idea and awesome research on the painting!

[1] German History in Documents and Images (GHDI), “Adolph Menzel, The Iron-Rolling Mill (Modern Cyclops),” Forging an Empire: Bismarckian Germany (1866-1890).

[2] Barkin, Kenneth et al. "Germany- History- The economy, 1890–1914". Encyclopedia Britannica, 31 Dec. 2024.

[3] Barkin, Kenneth et al. "Germany- History- The economy, 1890–1914". Encyclopedia Britannica, 31 Dec. 2024.

[4] Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Cyclops". Encyclopedia Britannica, 8 Jun. 2024.