German Expressionist Woodcuts and Kathe Kollwitz

Kathe Kollwitz, Memorial Sheet for Karl Libknecht. 1991. woodcut.

Käthe Kollwitz, Self-Portrait, 1923

During the first decade of the twentieth century, Expressionist shifted their interest to a style now known as German Expressionist. Artists were interested in bringing back an old German tradition of late Gothic and early Renaissance heritage – borrowing from the work of Albrecht Durer. The German Expressionist were known for their coarse lines and jagged lines produced by gouges. They typically distorted colour, scale and space to convey their subjective feelings toward war, poverty and death.  “Expressionists infused their subjects with a rich emotional quality through a concentration of systematized symbols.” (http://www.gradesaver.com/the-visit/study-guide/section4/,  http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/german-expressionism.htm)

Shante Neal

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Kathe Kollwitz is viewed as one of the most significant and influential German artists of the twentieth century. She is revered as a remarkable woman who produced works of art that depict a life filled with grief, poverty, and despair. One might ask why all of Kollwitz’s work is filled with stark images of the beaten and downtrodden. Perhaps she chose this depressing theme due to her life being filled with war and loss. Her dark and solem works simply mirror what she had seen throughout her life. Her first series were etchings based on a performance by Gerhart Hauptmann titled The Weavers, which dramatized the subjugation of the of WEAVERS IN Langembielau and their unsuccessful rebellion in 1842. Her second works was lithography pieces based on the German Peasant’s War, a war which was a violent revolution taken place in Souther Germany. She lived through World War I, a war in which her son was killed in battle. The loss of her son put Kathe through a long depression that would haunt her throughout her life. Kathe produced drawings for a monument in memory of her son and his fallen companions. The memorial was placed in Belgian cemetary and titled The Grieving Parents. During World War II Kathe was forced to resign from her faculty position at an Art Institute in Germany due to her support of the opposition of the Nazi’s. Also, her art work was removed from museums due to her opposition of the Nazi’s. She began work in a smaller studio, in an attempt to lay low and in the mid 1930’s she completed her last major cycle of lithographs titled Death. This series consisted of eight stones: Woman Welcoming Death, Death With Girl in Lap, Death Reaches for a Group of Children, Death Struggles with a Woman, Death on the Highway, Death as a Friend, Death in the Water, and The Call of Death.

by Daniel O’Neill

Sources:
Bittner, Herbert, Kathe Kollwitz; Drawings, page 4
Jane Kelly, “The Point is to Change it” jstor.org/stable/1360622

Images: http://www.moma.org/collection_ge/browse_results.php?criteria=O:AD:E:3201|A:AR:E:1&role=1&view_all=1