'Miners' by Josef Herman
This audio clip describes the painting Miners by Josef Herman (1911–2000).
It has been created for use as part of our primary school resource, The Superpower of Looking, in order to support pupils with blindness or visual impairment to take part in the lessons.
Explore the painting further in our resource, Monumental Welsh coal miners take a break.
Full audio description text
The artist Josef Herman, working in 1951, has painted this picture of six miners on six strips of board, using oil paint. There is a miner on each of the six boards, which together make up one large picture, measuring just under three metres tall and about six metres wide. The miners are painted simply, in a cartoon style – with fat fingers and few features to set one man apart from his neighbour.
They are face-on to us, hunkered down in a tunnel with a bare brown wall and floor. Five men are crouching with their backs to the wall and the sixth is standing at the left-hand end. He's side-on to us, looking over the heads of the rest of his team. The miners are lit only by the lamps on the helmets of the men towards the left. The lamps are squares of white which stand out against the browns, black and dull oranges of the rest of the painting. Much of it is hard to make out. But here and there the light picks out the blue of a scarf and a grubby white vest. It casts an orange glow as it falls on the faces and hands of the men.
They wear brown jackets, rough trousers and round-toed boots. The two on the end towards the right wear flat caps rather than miners' helmets. One has his arms folded. Some rest their hands on their knees. Two lean in towards each other. This gives a feeling of companionship as they hunker down in the gloom of their underground world.
