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| Allegory of Industry | |
|---|---|
| Spanish:Alegoría de la Industria | |
 | |
| Artist | Francisco Goya |
| Year | c. 1805 |
| Medium | Tempera on canvas |
| Dimensions | 227 cm diameter (89 in) |
| Location | Museo del Prado,Madrid |
Allegory of Industry is a tempera on canvastondo painted byFrancisco Goya,c. 1805. It was one of the four paintings from a series ofallegories about scientific and economic progress (including the Allegory of Agriculture, Allegory of Commerce, and Allegory of Science, the latter of which has beenlost), which decorated a waiting room of the residence ofManuel Godoy, Prime Minister ofSpain during the reign ofCharles IV. Since 1932, the picture has been in theMuseo del Prado. The image shows two young women as they thread their respective spinning wheels in a semi-darkened room, illuminated by a large window which opens from the left (from the point of view of the observer). At the back, in the dark, one can discern uncertain faces of old women (who have been linked to theFates). The uncertainty of these women doesn’t reveal whether or not they are factor workers or representations of the tapestry or canvas.
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The themes of the allegory show Goya’s desire to appear as an enlightened and reformist leader and the ultimate guarantor of economic and scientific progress of Spain, in relation to the activities of theSociedad Económica de los Amigos del País, which thrived at the time. However, this painting is an indicator of the stale concept that the Spain of that time could develop its industry, but the image itself is far from representing theIndustrial Revolution which was occurring in the more developed regions of Europe. The image departs from the model of theAncien Régime (seeLas Hilanderas byVelázquez), but it is far from representative of the industrial era, as there is no increase in the number ofspinners to reflect the mass production of industry and the work itself is being done on simple machines, instead of the more advanced devices used in the more developed countries. Furthermore, the clothes the women are wearing are not typical of the industrial working class. The low necklines, white blouses and melancholy and distracted attitudes more accurately belong to upper class women than those who would work in a factory. The robustness of their bodies also isn’t the best way to imagine the regular conditions of nutrition of theindustrial working class. It is a traditional and very flat representation in its symbolism and in its own way it shows the conceptual gap between what the wealthy thought of the industrial revolution should be and what it was actually like.
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