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Munkácsy drew his subject for the "Lint-Makers" from the War of Independence. A wounded Hungarian soldier, resting on his crutch, recounts the hard battles he experienced. The villagers who stayed behind - the women and girls, old people, children the retired soldier and young hunchback - listen spellbound with compassion as they make lint for the wounded soldiers. Munkácsy's picture was inspired by his own painful memories - his sad youth as an orphan of the War of Independence and the tragic events that followed. The composition is well balanced. As in "The Condemned Cell" he has placed the main figures at the side, but through the grouping of the figures, and the deep analysis of the characters, he directs attention to the wounded hero and makes him the centre of both composition and content. The different shades of emotion on the faces and in the movements and postures of the figures are expressed in a molten golden-brown contrasted pictural representation.
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