Kazakhstan’s Magnitka. The Blast Furnace

Description

Author: Nurmukhammedov, Nagimbek. 1924-1986
An industrial landscape depicting the construction of a blast furnace features an excavator with a raised boom on the right foreground, behind which rises the structure of the furnace with its cranes and chimneys; on the left, a trench, a concrete foundation, and wooden formwork are set. The vertical rhythm of the cranes and booms, guiding the eye toward the high clear sky, lends the scene the scale and momentum of a major construction effort. Executed in an plein-air manner with broad impasto strokes, the forms are generalized. The palette relies on closely related ochre-grey tones of the site, highlighted by blue and red accents of the machinery.