The painting "The Miners" depicts the moment of the mine shift change: one half, tired and weary from the exhausting labor underground, with lit lamps comes out of the lift; at the granary a new shift of workers is waiting, with equipment in their hands. Dark colors, prevalent in the painting, strengthen its emotional expressiveness. With extraordinary truthfulness Kasatkin managed to show the slave labor conditions of these harsh looking, exhausted miners. The Miners propelled Kasatkin to the special place that he holds until his death. A miner on the painting, Lame Luke, is already physically crippled by ruthless capitalist exploitation, with bent, shaking knees, with the oil lamp. He is ready to continue his work in the mine, where with every step injury awaits him, and perhaps even death because of the criminal attitude of the owner of the mine to the working conditions of the miner. (http://www.fort-russ.com/2015/09/nikolay-kasatkin-first-painter-of.html)