Challenge Of Authority No More War

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

KÄTHE KOLLWITZ:

HUMANITARIAN AND POLITICAL ACTIVIST

DEREK MCPHERSON

BA (HONS) CONTEMPORARY ART PRACTICE, 2013.

Supervisor: Robert Sutter

Word Count: 9,009

( acknowledgements )

FORM 4

INSERTED ON THIS PAGE

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION

II. METHODOLOGY

Combined Analysis

Formal Analysis

Contextual Analysis

Marxism

III. LITERATURE REVIEW

The Early Years

Political Awakening

The Voice of the People

Marxism and Socialism

A Challenge of Authority: No More War

IV. ARTEFACT ANALYSIS

The March of the Weavers

The Downtrodden

Hunger

Never Again War

Tower of Mothers

Pieta – Mother with Her Dead Son

V. CONCLUSION

VI. APPENDIX

List of Plates

VII. BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

This research project will focus around the life and work of German artist Käthe Kollwitz. It will look at how her beliefs, from both a political and moral standpoint, influenced and permeated into the work she created. It will also look at how, coupled with these beliefs, the political and social climate of the times in which she lived and worked affected her artistic output and her personal life.

It could not be underestimated how much these conditions would have had an impact on Kollwitz the person and the artist, and as such they will be an essential part in creating an understanding of the topic. Kollwitz held strong Socialist and Marxist political beliefs as well as being a pacifist and therefore opposed to any form of violence. Living in a country emerging from one war and heading into another, along with the rise of the fascist Nazi party, it becomes clear that a strong willed and determined character such as Kollwitz was to meet with both hardship and repression.

With that in mind this research project will look at whether or not these views she held led her to use her artwork as an expression of outrage and in protest against the injustices she perceived on the common and poor among the population, and also at the conditions inflicted upon them in times of war and hardship. As of course she would not have wanted to participate in any form of aggressive or destructive protest. It will also be looking at how her political views may have influenced her choice of subject matter within her work, possibly as a way of promoting her Socialist and Marxist ideals to the wider population and even the world in general.

The conditions that Kollwitz herself would have faced as an artist working at this time and the climate of it, and the many layers of oppressive and restrictive forces against her, would no doubt affect her work. Not only would her politics bring her into direct opposition with the governing forces, which ultimately led to the censorship of her work. But she would also face the barrier of being a woman working in a male dominated field, and indeed society. Facing the challenge of bringing about a sense of social mobility for the common people and for strengthening the role of women in forming these societies.

Another aspect of the research this project will undertake is whether or not the empathy and compassion Kollwitz’s shows within her work for the poor, the orphaned and the widowed gives her work such emotional power that it endures and can still be felt by viewers even today. As many of these concerns and issues that she tries to raise awareness of are still prevalent in today’s world, with war and poverty and the troubled economic climate still being major concerns.

METHODOLOGY

Combined Analysis

‘What is the difference between theory and methodology? .....think of

theory as the process of formulating research questions and methodology

as the process of trying to answer those questions’

(D’Alleva, A. 2005:13)

It seems evident according to art historian Anne D’Alleva that both method and theory in art go hand in hand in the process of contextually and critically analysing art and art related topics. D’Alleva’s book ‘Methods & Theories of Art History’ is useful in understanding the juxtaposition of the two in relation to each other and to help make sure the quest for answers in academic reading, writing and enquiry is fruitful and rewarding.

Another of D’Alleva’s publications ‘How to Write Art History’ points us in the direction of using formal analysis as a tool in deciphering some of the artists thinking, the choice and use of materials and media etc and the practical decisions of making art. But she also raises awareness of the fact that the practical decisions an artist makes in producing their work cannot fail to truly be detached from the context in which it was made. In Anne D’Alleva’s opinion:

‘there’s no such thing as a pure formal analysis that is totally divorced

from Contextual analysis’

(D’Alleva, A. 2010:27)

Formal Analysis

Using formal analysis in describing art critically consists of many elements. And although the visual aspects of a piece of work such as colour, line, scale and composition and their physical attributes are important in this sense, D’Alleva reminds us that this description is only part of it and that we should also look at a work of art with a view to trying to understand what the artist wants to convey. She also points out to us that the consideration of art changing over a passage of time is important, she states:

‘Be sure that you’re not ascribing visual or physical characteristics to the work

that it didn’t have at the time it was made. For example, although we now see the Parthenon as an austere, white marble structure, it was originally decorated with red, blue and yellow paint, and polished bronze disks’

(D’Alleva, A. 2010:28)

Contextual Analysis

The undertaking of contextual analysis is trying to understand the moment in time it was made. Why it was made and the surrounding factors that may have influenced it such as social aspects, politics as well as spiritual and economic influences. Contextual analysis can also include the here and now so to speak, how the piece of art fits today or how it has been shaped or re-interpreted through the course of its history. In D’Alleva’s opinion to think of art in a social context is to recognise it as something that has an effect on people, in a sense we could think of this as being a continuing interaction between the work and its audience. D’Alleva makes an interesting point in saying:

‘To think of a work of art ‘as’ social context rather than ‘in’ social context

means recognizing it as something that has an effect on people, on how

theythink and feel and act, and on larger social processes – how groups

of people think and feel and act. Works of art and social context are often thought of as mutually constituting, that is, having an effect on each other. Works of art are shaped by historical processes, which in turn are shaped by works of art in a continual interaction’

(D’Alleva, A. 2010:52)

This notion of who we are influences the contextual significance we may place on a work of art is further backed up by D’Alleva’s assertion that:

‘The way that you interpret things is based on who you are – a person

living in your place and time, with your education and experiences – and

that inevitably shapes your interpretation’

(D’Alleva, A. 2010:27)

LITERATURE REVIEW

The Early Years

From her childhood through to her early artistic career and beyond, it is important and valuable to try and gain an insight and to understand and dissect what made Kollwitz the artist and person she became. By analyzing her upbringing and her shifting perceptions of the world around her, what made her become interested in art and politics, and empower her to act? All of which inevitably shaped and influenced the work she produced as an artist. By establishing the sentiment and affection Kollwitz developed for the poor and downtrodden, the working class within the society, we can begin to understand the passions that drove her on in her artistic pursuits. In the face of many bouts of self doubt, hardships, social constraints and oppression in regards to her work and still at the end of it establish herself as a major contributor to western art and become a figurehead for female artists is a testament to her character and ability.

Kollwitz in her early career had trouble finding herself as an artist and gave up the idea of becoming a painter as she found it to be too difficult. The resulting artistic development of Kollwitz though, through the media of drawing and printmaking, produced the unique and emotive qualities or her work which could be argued was almost perfect in truly portraying the people and ideals that she sought to. A style which, through its stark and raw reality, could impose itself on the conscience of any observer. Although her training as a painter may not have been wholly successful, the subtle use of light and shadow can be seen in her style, a feature often characterized in painting.

Born as Käthe Schmidt on the 8th of July 1867, in the industrial city of Königsburg, located in East Prussia, to her parents Katherina and Karl Schmidt. She was to be exposed through her upbringing many of the ideals she herself adopted and believed in and upheld throughout her life. Her father worked as a stone mason even though he was educated to become a lawyer, choosing not to practice his profession because he deemed the governmental rule of Otto von Bismarck in Prussia at the time to be of an authoritarian nature. To serve under this rule would be against his moral and social principles, and his political views which were, after reading the work of Karl Marx, strongly in favour of Socialism. This refusal to abandon his beliefs in order to place himself in a position of privilege can be seen echoed throughout Kollwitz’s own life. It is easy to begin imagining how Käthe Kollwitz’s early upbringing would be influenced by her father’s role in her life, and how this would not only provide her with a foundation on which to build her own interest in politics and the social plight of her fellow citizens, but also give her the sense of purpose and drive she had in voicing those opinions and not consider herself inferior because of her gender. It would also allow her the freedom to flourish and pursue her aims of becoming an artist, and developing as an individual without the oppressive restrictions many young women would have faced within their family life, and society. As Martha Kearns states in regards to Karl Schmidt in her book:

‘Schmidt was a man of the future in his educational as well as political

views. Unlike many Prussian fathers....the head of the Schmidt family

was not a strict disciplinarian and did not believe in corporal punishment.

A moral idealist, he taught his children to correct their behaviour through

self-control, choosing to guide rather than force their development’

She also points out:

‘In a day when girls were rarely encouraged to aspire to roles other

than those of wife and mother, he personally helped to develop the

individual talents of each of his three daughters’

All of the Schmidt girls had a talent for art but Käthe’s desire to succeed even led to some resentment towards her siblings when she overheard a conversation between her father and mother concerning the youngest daughter Lise. She heard her father state that Lise’s drawings were so good that she would soon be catching up to Käthe. In one of her diary entries concerning the incident Käthe wrote:

‘When I heard this I felt envy and jealousy for probably the first time

in my life. I loved Lise dearly, we were very close to one another and

I was happy to see her progress up to the point where I began; but

everything in me protested against her going beyond that point, I

always had to be ahead of her’

Nonetheless her father was still certain that Kathe had the potential to become a great artist and in 1881 he arranged for a local copper engraver by the name of Rudolf Mauer to give her lessons. Much of this took the form of drawing by copying the works of famous artists and by sketching from plastercasts. At the age of sixteen Kathe applied to the Konigsberg Academy of Art but was rejected on the grounds of her gender. Subsequent to this her father made arrangement for her to study with the painter Emile Neide who introduced Kathe to the work of French artist Gustave Courbet, one of the leading Realist painters. She felt influenced by his portrayal of the reality of everyday life and scenarios, and indeed people, and produced a work of her own titled ‘The Emigrants’ in 1883.

Political Awakening

The Schmidt family was frequently involved in politics and it was their affiliation with the Social Democratic Party in Germany that first led Kathe to meet another younger member by the name of Karl Kollwitz. Similar to her father he had a great interest in politics and social issues and he introduced Kathe to the writings of August Bebel, a politically active figure and a vocal supporter of Marxist ideals. In particular this was to include his book titled ‘Woman and Socialism’ where Bebel argues one of his points that it was the goal of socialists:

‘not only to achieve equality of men and women under the present

social order, which constitutes the sole aim of the bourgeois womens

movement, but to go far beyond this and to remove all barriers that make

one human being dependent on another, which includes the dependence

of one sex upon another’

And there was one passage in the book that Kathe took particular interest in where it read:

‘In the new society women will be entirely independent, both socially

And economically...The development of our social life demands the

Release of women from her narrow sphere of domestic life, and her

Full participation in public life and the missions of civilization’

Kathe continued to develop her relationship with Karl Kollwitz, who had went on to become a medical student, and in 1884 he asked Kathe to marry him. Her father became upset at her acceptance of this proposal as he feared it would impact on her pursuits in following her artistic career and she would instead feel inclined to fulfil the domestic role that would be the natural progression for a young woman in her position. He did however manage to secure a place to study at the Berlin School for Woman Artists where she would be taught under Karl Stauffer-Bern, a Swiss born portrait painter, engraver and graphic artist. Through him Kollwitz would be made aware of the work of Max Klinger, of whom she had no prior knowledge, despite him being one of Germanys most accomplished and acclaimed artists. His work was widely admired by both symbolists and surrealists and influenced artists such as Edvard Munch and Max Ernst. Martha Kearns points out in her biography of Kollwitz that:

‘She had never heard of Max Klinger, Prussia’s most skilled artist of the

Then popular naturalism, a school of thought which deemed people to

Be predetermined victims in a bitter struggle for survival. As an art form,

Naturalism emphasised photo like images of actual persons, scenes and

Conditions, often in the most minute, even microscopic detail. Unlike artists working in other styles, naturalist artists featured women as subjects as frequently as men’

Martha Kearns also goes on to talk about that the particular cycle of works that made such an impression on Kathe Kollwitz. It was a series of fifteen works entitled ‘A Life. Impression’. She says:

‘these fifteen etchings was that of a young woman who lost her virginity to

her lover and who thus, in the eyes of the bourgeoisie, had fallen into

unredeemable sin...One print, ‘Into the Gutter’, shows a young woman being shoved into an open sewer by a horde of grotesque, sadistically grinning

figures’

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Kollwitz wrote in her journal concerning the work:

‘It was the first work of his I had seen, and it excited me tremendously’

Kollwitz’s intention was to continue her study under Stauffer-Bern but this idea was put to an end due to an unfortunate event resulting from an affair Stauffer-Bern had with a wealthy patrons wife. The man used his government contacts to commit his wife to an asylum and Stauffer-Bern was imprisoned as a result of exaggerated charges. Although his spell in prison was brief he committed suicide on his release.

Kathe Kollwitz moved on from Berlin and found a place to study at the Munich Women’s Art School. She became a member of a club where she impressed her talents upon her fellow members with a series of drawings depicting a coal miners strike that was part of her first exhibition with the group. In her journal entry concerning the occasion Kollwitz says:

‘For the first time I felt that my hopes were confirmed. I imagined a wonderful future and was so filled with thoughts of glory and happiness that I could

not sleep all night’

In 1891 the couple were back living in a working class area of Berlin. Karl Kollwitz was now qualified as a doctor and began practicing in the area. With his socialist sensibilities still very much part of his agenda, Karl Kollwitz wanted to serve the poor and be of help to where he felt it was most needed. Luckily for him a new legislation had recently been passed that made this possible as Otto von Bismarck, under increasing pressure due to the rise in support for the Social Democratic Party, introduced a system of health insurance funded by the government, the first of its type in Europe. The following year their first son arrived, they named him Hans. Kathe instantly began using her son as a model and produced many sketches of him in the first few months alone. Karl did all he could to help so that Kathe could also have time to work but as soon as they were able to afford it they hired a housekeeper to aid in her domestic duties and allow her more working time.

In 1893 Kathe Kollwitz attended a performance of a play by Gerhart Hauptmann called ‘The Weavers’. It was to become quite a defining moment for Kollwitz both in terms of her political awareness and viewpoint and also in relation to her artwork. It did in fact inspire her to go on and produce one of her best known and most outstanding series of works. The play dealt with a real event from recent history, where in June 1844 in the Prussian province of Silesia, disturbances and riots broke out as a result of an economic recession. Instigated by a large group of weavers aggrieved at their treatment at the hands of their employers and in retaliation for the hardships inflicted on their families as a result, they attacked warehouses, factories and machinery used within the industry and even the mansions of the wealthy business owners themselves. The Prussian Army then arrived in an attempt to put down the uprising and upon firing into the crowd they killed eleven people and wounded many more. The leaders of the group were arrested, flogged and imprisoned. Karl Marx himself referred to the event in claiming that it marked the birth of a German workers movement. Despite the play having a ban of public performances imposed upon it by the Berlin Police the Berliner Freie Bühne, an independent Berlin theatre, performed the work. Gerhard Hauptmann was highly credited for his work and would later go on to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Kathe Kollwitz emphasises the impact this performance had on her when she recalls:

‘The performance was given in the morning...My husband’s work kept

Him from going but I was there burning with anticipation. The best actors of the day participated, with Else Lehmann playing the young weavers wife.

In the evening there was a large gathering to celebrate and Hauptmann

was hailed as the leader of the youth...The performance was a milestone in my work. I dropped the series on Germinal and set to work on The Weavers’

Kollwitz did indeed drop her work on the proposed series based on Germinal, Emile Zola’s novel about a coal miners strike in northern France. She would spend the next five years on a series of lithographs that illustrated the uprising depicted in The Weavers. The conclusion of the work resulted in six pieces which were titled 1. Poverty, 2. Death ( a weavers child dies of hunger) 3. Conspiricy ( the weavers plan to avenge the deaths of their children), 4. Weavers on the March ( the weavers march to the factory owners home) 5. Attack ( the weavers attack the mansion owned by the factory owner) 6. The End ( the consequences of the uprising).

___________________________________________________________________

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In her assessment of one of the pieces in the series, Poverty, Martha Kearns describes the scene in a way that perfectly highlights how Kollwitz manages to go beyond the acts of aggressiveness and revolt and touch on the more sensual and deeply emotive sensibilities of the human nature that are ultimately the catalyst of the events themselves. She says:

‘ Kollwitz’s meticulous craft and her aesthetic and political vision of

The working class man and woman are apparent in the Revolt of the

Weavers. The first lithograph, Poverty, pictures a crowded room in which

A child is sleeping in a bed in the foreground. The mother, with deeply

Wrinkled brow, is stooped over the bed, her large, bony hands clutching

Her head in despair. Father and another child sit haddled by the back

Window, anxiously watching the sleeping child....The parents steady

Gaze at their sick child reflects uneasy despair. An empty loom, ominous

Sign of unemployment, fills the back of the room’

In 1896 Kathe Kollwitz gave birth to her and her husband’s second son whom they named Peter. Initially worried that the increased limitations on her working time due to the arrival of another child would hold her back, her work indeed did not suffer. She stated:

‘I was more productive because I was more sensual, I lived as a human

Being must live, passionately interested in everything’

That same year Kathe’s father Karl Schmidt became very ill. She produced a drawing for him as a present for his seventieth birthday. Kathe recorded in her diary that:

‘He was overjoyed. I can still remember how he ran through the house

Calling again and again to mother to see what little Kathe had done’

The following year her father passed away and his death deeply affected her art and her ability to work. She says:

‘I was so depressed because I could no longer give him the pleasure

Of seeing the work publically exhibited that I dropped the idea of a show’

A close friend however took over for Kathe and entered ‘The Revolt of the Weavers’ into the Great Berlin Exhibition. Adolf Menzel, widely considered the most important artist in the country, was impressed greatly by ‘The Revolt of the Weavers’ and as a member of the jury proposed that Kollwitz be awarded the prestigious gold medal. However due to her socialist sympathies, of which he disapproved, Kaiser Wilhelm II, the King of Prussia, blocked the nomination. The following year though ‘The Revolt of the Weavers’ was exhibited again at the Dresden Museum and after receiving a proposition from the museum director the King of Saxony agreed to bestow the gold medal to Kollwitz and in 1899 she was granted her reward. Kollwitz says:

‘From then on...I was counted among the foremost artists of the country’

The Voice of the People

After the success of ‘The Revolt of the Weavers’ Kathe Kollwitz began work on her next project which was to be another series of etchings. These works were to portray and deal with the harsh conditions being endured among the working class population in Berlin, a subject that had always been, and always would be, close to her heart. Titled ‘The Downtrodden’ the series focuses around the lives of three people who are victims of extreme poverty and hardship. Kollwitz later recalled her motives for choosing her subjects exclusively from the working class:

‘only such subjects gave me a simple and unqualified way what I felt

to be beautiful...The broad freedom of movement in the gestures of

the common people had beauty. Middle-class people held no appeal

to me at all. Bourgeois life as a whole seemed to me pedantic. The

proletariat, on the other hand, had a grandness of manner, a breadth

to their lives.’

The patients who filled her husbands waiting room also held great fascination for Kollwitz and often found themselves as subjects for her work. She took a special interest in the women there and their lives, and documented this with drawing after drawing. Kollwitz says of it:

‘The working class woman shows me, through her appearance and

being, much more than the ladies who are totally limited by conventional

behaviour. The working class woman shows me her hands, her feet and

her hair. She lets me see the shape and form of her body through her

clothes. She presents herself and the expression of her feelings openly,

without disguises’

In 1906 Kathe Kollwitz was awarded the opportunity to live and work in Florence cost free. This was in receipt of the Villa Romana Prize which was established by Max Klinger as a way to use his success in helping other younger artists. As well as being able to work there the idea of being able to sample the rich and varied influences of medieval and renaissance art would also be beneficial to the artist. Kollwitz took her son Peter with her to the Villa in Florence as he was recovering from tuberculosis.

She spent much of her time there studying and taking in the art and architecture within the city but she would later confess in her journal that she found the whole experience uninspiring and as a result her stay in Italy was to be fruitless in terms of producing new work. She would state:

‘The enormous galleries are confusing, and they put you off because

of the masses of inferior stuff in the pompous Italian vein. And so I have

been trying the churches, with better luck. There are magnificent frescoes in the churches...And finally I again ventured into the Pitti and Uffizi galleries.

There are beautiful works here and there in them, but only here and there,

it seems to me’

After her return to Germany she begun and completed a series of works in which she stated she used a combination of aquatint, soft ground and regular etching processes. ‘The Peasant War’ which the works were titled again gained Kollwitz much praise from critics and was a further emphasis on her rising reputation. One of the images from the series called ‘Raped’ was claimed by critics to be one of the first or earliest images within western art that showed a female victim of sexual violence in a way that was sympathetic and from the point of view of a woman. Issued in 1908 the series was confirmation of her stature as one of the most important artists working in Europe at the time.

The following year Kollwitz was approached by a group of artists that run and published a progressive journal called Simplicissimus. They commissioned her to produce a body of five pieces that were to be called ‘Portraits of Misery’. The charcoal drawings that Kollwitz produced for this commission were based on the working class people she had been studying in her husband’s surgery. Further exploring her reasons on why she was continually drawn to these people Kollwitz says:

‘I met the women who came to my husband for help and so, incidentally,

came to me, I was gripped by the full force of the proletarians fate.

Unsolved problems such as prostitution and unemployment grieved and

tormented me, and contributed to my feeling that I must keep on with my

studies of the lower classes. And portraying them again and again opened

a safety-valve for me; it made life bearable’

This incessant desire not only was an exploration of conscience for Kollwitz though, the continuation of studies she was making was beginning to pay off artistically as well. When she had completed the series and her work was finished she recorded in her diary:

‘A happy day yesterday. Finished drawing the fifth and last plate for

Simplicissimus...I am so glad that I can work well and easily now. As a

result of so much studies I have at last reached the point where I have a certain background of technique which enables me to express what I want

without a model’

On the 28th of June 1914 the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated and was to be the trigger for the First World War. Both of Kathe Kollwitz’s sons, Hans and Peter joined up with the German Army went to war. In her diary entry of 30th September that year Kollwitz wrote:

‘Nothing is real but the frightfulness of this state, which we almost

grow used to. In such times it seems so stupid that the boys must go to

war. The whole thing is so ghastly and insane. Occasionally there comes

that foolish thought: how can they possibly take part in such madness?

And at once the cold shower: they must, must!’

A month later her youngest of her two sons, Peter Kollwitz, was killed while fighting on the western front at Dixmuide in Belguim. The news was devastating to Kathe Kollwitz, already strongly opposed to the madness of war and now it had taken from her one of the true loves in her life. Kollwitz tried to use her art as an outlet to deal with her grief but she found it too difficult and caused a stagnation in her work.

She writes in her diary:

‘I feel it stripping me physically of all the strength I need for work. Make

a drawing: the mother letting her dead son slide into her arms. I might

make a hundred such drawings and yet I do not get any closer to him,

I am seeking him. As if to find him in the work.....sometimes it all becomes

so terribly difficult’

In 1916 she drew a piece called ‘Anguish: The Widow’ which depicts a pregnant woman standing before the viewer with her arms out as if to embrace. But her hands reach out to empty space, no one there to be held. As the title would imply the woman has lost her husband, most likely to the war. According to Martha Kearns though there may be a deeper resonance to this piece when she comments:

‘The woman is shocked and despondent from mourning; the woman is

Kollwitz, who felt the widows grief through the loss of her own son, the

poor woman’s desolation is her own’

Kollwitz’s view on the war had changed over the course of the few years that had passed, although she certainly would never have been in favour of it or indeed of both her sons going off to fight in it, she stated that she did not argue against her sons decision to go and join the German Army:

‘because there was the conviction that Germany was in the right and

had the duty to defend herself’

However this view was now redundant in her heart and mind, and with her loss she spoke for many who had lost loved ones as a result of the war when she says:

‘The feeling that we were betrayed then, at the beginning. And perhaps

Peter would still be living had it not been for this terrible betrayal. Peter and millions, many millions of other boys, all betrayed’

Marxism and Socialism

On the 11th of November 1918 The Armistice was signed that brought an end to the First World War but with the country broken and disillusioned it began to descend into the many years of political and social turmoil that would bring the country and its people even greater hardship. Mass strikes and mutinies began to spread throughout Germany with workers and soldiers at the forefront. Workers councils took control of factories and the authority of military officers were undermined by the soldiers councils. Kollwitz herself helped to form a workers and artists council in Berlin. She also produced a piece, a charcoal drawing, which she called ‘Revolution 1918’

The Social Democratic Party were in temporary government and were given demands by the workers and soldiers councils that they were not prepared to meet, such as the socialization of key industries, land to be redistributed and a peoples militia to be set in motion as a replacement to the army. Instead of any agreements or negotiations the Social Democratic Party announced that there was to be a national election.

The political left in Germany were themselves in disagreement to the way ahead and divisions began to surface within their parties. At a convention of the Spartacus League, an underground political organisation made who promoted the idea that socialists should turn the nationalist conflict into a revolutionary war, one of the leading members Rosa Luxemburg argued against provoking an armed uprising, instead promoting the idea of her party seeking democratic election into power. She was almost in isolation within her party though and was heavily outvoted, they instead sought to take power on the streets and reluctantly she decided to lend her effort and name to the cause. Kathe Kollwitz was in agreement with Rosa Luxemburg and was unwilling to lend any support to the call for a violent revolution, she was sympathetic to the demands and ideals that they were in favour of but not their method. One of the founders and leaders of the Spartacus League was Karl Liebknecht, the only member of the German parliament who opposed any involvement in the First World War at the time. He argued:

‘This war, which none of the peoples involved desired, was not started for the benefit of the German or of any other people. It is an Imperialist war, a war for capitalist domination of the world markets and for the political domination of the important countries in the interest of industrial and financial capitalism’

A few years previously he had also published a pamphlet titled ‘The Main Enemy is at Home’ in which he declared:

‘The main enemy of the German people is in Germany: German imperialism, the German war party, German secret diplomacy. This enemy at home must be fought by the German people in a political struggle, cooperating with the proletariat of other countries whose struggle is against their own imperialists. We think as one with the German people...Nothing for them, everything for the German people. Everything for the international proletariat, for the sake of the German proletariat and downtrodden humanity.’

The Spartakist Rising as it was referred to began in Berlin, the leader of the Social Democratic Party and Germany’s new chancellor, Freidrich Ebert, called in the Army and the Freikops to put a stop to the rebellion. By January 1919 the rebellion had come to a halt and had been crushed by the military and governmental forces. Most of the leaders were put under arrest and this included Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht who were arrested together. Neither Luxemburg nor Liebknecht were fortunate enough to even make it to prison though as both of them were murdered en route.

Kathe Kollwitz visited the Liebknecht family home to offer her sympathies on the morning of the funeral. They asked Kollwitz if she would make drawings of Karl Liebknecht as he lay in his coffin. Kollwitz noticed that there had been red flowers placed around the wound on his forehead where he had been shot. She would later record that she had tried the drawing as a lithograph and that it was becoming the only technique that she could adequately manage. However it would later be decided by her that the piece would take the form of a woodcut.

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Kollwitz woodcut of Karl Liebknecht was then attacked and criticised by the German Communist Party because it had been produced by someone who was not a member. Kollwitz’s diary entry summed up her view on this when she says:

‘As an artist who moreover is a woman cannot be expected to unravel

these crazily complicated relationships. As an artist I have the right to extract

the emotional content out of everything, to let the things work upon me and

then give them outward form. And so I also have the right to portray the

working class’ farewell to Liebknecht, and even dedicate it to the workers,

without following Liebknecht politically’

The events of the Spartakist Rising and what followed made Kollwitz take stock of her own political views and her own pre-conceived ideas of how she imagined herself as a radical political revolutionary in her youth, her inability to commit any support to such a cause made her realise that may have been a falsified ideal on her part. She states:

‘I have been through a revolution, and I am convinced I am no revolutionist.

My childhood dream of dying on the barricades will hardly be fulfilled,

because I should hardly mount a barricade now I know what they are like

in reality. And so I now know what an illusion I have lived for so many years.

I thought I was a revolutionary and was only an evolutionary. Yes,

sometimes I do not know whether I am a socialist at all, whether I am not

rather a democrat instead.’

In 1920 Kollwitz produced a piece called ‘Woman Lost in Thought’. It was a reflective self portrait and at the time she reflected this mood in which she wrote:

‘I am disillusioned with all the hate that is in the world. I long for socialism

which allows people to live – the world has seen enough murder lies, and

corruption’

Another piece that followed this showed a tired woman being cradled in lap and arms of death, again highlighting Kollwitz’s obvious weariness towards the continuing and unrelenting cycle of hardship and upheaval that her country and her people were subjected to. Titled simply ‘Death with Woman in Lap’ Kollwitz sums up her feelings by saying:

‘I am no longer expanding outward, I am contracting into myself’

In her journal article ‘Feminism, Marxism, Method and the State: An Agenda for Theory’ Catharine MacKinnon looks at a comparison between Marxist and Feminist theory and how they can correlate to social structures, instigate change and challenge notions of authority. Of Marxism she suggests:

‘Marxist theory argues that society is fundamentally constructed of the relations people form as they do and make things needed to survive

humanly’

(MacKinnon, C.A 1988:515)

This could be viewed in the context of Käthe Kollwitz’s career, and her life, and how the relations she formed within certain circles of society, and her developing political views, helped to shape her work. This work then became a vehicle to express these relationships and how the art that she sought to make was, in a sense, a product of the social and political climate she found herself in. It would also be hard to ignore the significance of feminist theory in relation to these ideas, it could be said that she epitomized the notion of instigating social change and challenging authority. Especially when you consider the place and time in which she lived and worked, with her continued endeavor for her voice to be heard, not just for herself but for the benefit of others as well. MacKinnon argues a similarity in both feminist and Marxist theory in by which both suggest that:

‘division underlies the totality of social relations’

(MacKinnon, C.A 1982:516)

It was exactly these growing divisions Kollwitz witnessed around her that ignited what was a passionate artistic expression. It was the supposed lesser of these classes that was threatened to be trampled under with such division and be further driven into poverty and depravation, but Kollwitz strove to give them a voice. Within the ideals of Socialism it is advocated that the people should own the production of what sustains them, true to these ideals you could argue that Kollwitz gave ownership of her work to the people as the intimate bond between her art and her people would be hard to separate.

In 1972 Austrian artist Valie Export wrote, as a manifesto for the exhibition ‘MAGNA’, a piece titled ‘Women’s Art’. This is said to be one of the earliest feminist texts to be written in the German language. Even though they are separated by generations, there could be a comparison drawn to the issues raised by Export and the barriers that Käthe Kollwitz may have encountered, both in art and in life. She talks about the exclusion of women from being able to influence the shaping of society and their own identity as all forms of media in communication and social structuring are controlled by men, and therefore have defined the image of women. She says:

‘if reality is a social construction and men are its engineers then we are confronted by a masculine reality’

(Export, V. 1972)

And she also goes on to state:

‘women have not yet become properly aware of themselves because they have not found a voice in the sense that they have been excluded from the media. This is what I mean when I demand that women acquire a voice so that they can become aware of themselves’

(Export, V. 1972)

You could argue that this is exactly what Käthe Kollwitz was and had been doing previously, by using her art and seizing the opportunity to communicate through it her political and social ideals. She was using her imagery to influence change in the perception of women and promoting the views that women can and should be involved in matters of social construction. And by doing this she was also giving other women artists and women in general, a sense of empowerment and social mobility. There are echoes of Kollwitz’s influences within these ideals when Valie Export declares:

‘And it is time for us women to employ art as an expressive means of influencing the consciousness of everyone, in order to allow our ideas to permeate the social construction of reality and to create a human reality.’

(Export, V. 1972)

A Challenge of Authority: No More War

It is impossible to separate most artists work from the context in which it was created, and this is very much the case with Käthe Kollwitz’s work. Her anti-war and pacifistic views and her socialist and Marxist political ideologies would have grown and solidified from each other instilling themselves as an important part of her psyche. Her son Hans Kollwitz, in writing an introduction to the publication of Käthe Kollwitz’s letters and diaries, comments:

‘To her dying day she held to the belief: "No More War". Again and again

she urged that the idealism and readiness for the sacrifice of the young people should be turned not toward war, but toward building a better life

and society’

(Kollwitz, H)

It is evident that Käthe Kollwitz was a woman who had conviction in her ideals, an affinity with her people and wasn’t prepared to dilute those opinions or sacrifice them to improve her own life or career. Hans Kollwitz himself informs us that:

‘When Nazism was knocking at the gates she publically took sides against it, and had to take the consequences. She was dropped as teacher at the academy….and until the end of her life she was not again permitted to show her work publically.’

(Kollwitz, H.)

In advance of the German Federal Election of July 1932 an appeal was brought forward by the Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund called "Urgent Call for Unity" trying to rally support for the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party in order to defeat the National Socialists and prevent the Nazi’s from consolidating power in Germany. It was signed by nearly three dozen prominent Germans of the time, such as scientists, authors and artists which included Käthe Kollwitz and her husband Karl. The text of the appeal read:

‘Urgent Appeal!

The annihilation of all personal and political freedom in Germany

is imminent, if there is not success at the last minute, without prejudice

to the principles of opposites, to consolidate all forces that are united in

the rejection of fascism.

The next opportunity for this is July 31st. It is imperative to use this

opportunity and finally take a step toward building a united labor front,

which is necessary not just for the parliamentary, rather for additional

defense as well.

We're addressing everyone who shares this conviction with us, to aid in

this urgent call to coalesce around the SPD and KPD in this election,

best materializing in the form of joint candidate lists, however, at least in

the form of joint party lists.

Not only in the political parties, but especially in the large labor

organizations, it is essential to exert every conceivable influence. Let us ensure that no sloth of nature or cowardice of heart allow us sink into barbarism!’

The appeal was unsuccessful and among the immediate ramifications for culture in Germany was the removal of Kollwitz from teaching at the academy. Despite being banned from showing her work in her homeland the Nazi party still used some of Kollwitz’s imagery as part of their own propaganda, a move which Kollwitz would be seen as the ultimate insult as her work was being used in the promotion of ideals she so fervently opposed.

ARTEFACT ANALYSIS

March of the Weavers

This image is part of a series of works called ‘The Weavers’ which Käthe Kollwitz spent around five years working on. It was inspired by a play by Gerhard Hauptmann about an event from history where a group of workers took part in riots and disturbances during an economic recession and where eleven people were killed and many wounded after an intervention by the army. Kollwitz seen the play in secret as it was banned in public by the Berlin police at the time and she was immediately inspired to begin her work on it and put on hold her other projects at the time. The image itself shows a group of workers on the march assumingly on the way to their protests, some armed with tools and weapons. What’s interesting to note is that in the foreground of the picture you can clearly see that there is a woman, carrying a child on her back, marching with the men.

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Käthe Kollwitz,

March of the Weavers,

c. 1893-1897, Line Etching and

Sandpaper.

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One could use this image as an example to argue that Kollwitz was doing what Valie Export was suggesting women artists should do in her text and that she was using her art to influence change in the perception of women and promoting her views that women can be involved in matters of social construction and by doing so giving other women artists, and women in general, a sense of empowerment and social mobility.

The Downtrodden

In ‘The Downtrodden’ we can see Käthe Kollwitz’s skill in her use of line and tone to enhance the feeling of a harsh, grim reality of despair and distress felt by the people portrayed in the image. The title alone tells us that these people are in a state of hardship and the deathly pale complexion of the child being cradled, by who you could assume was her mother, indicates either severe ill health or that she has already passed away.

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Käthe Kollwitz,

The Downtrodden,

1900, Etching and Aquatint on Paper, 12 1/8" x 9 ¾".

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Originally Kollwitz had planned for this piece to be part of her series ‘The Weavers Rebellion’ before deciding to develop it independently. Which would suggest that what she was trying to put across in this image moved her so much, and so strongly, that she felt it should be a standalone piece. The fact that it was originally intended as part of the body of work that made up ‘The Weavers Rebellion’ one could assume that these people were thrown further into poverty due to the political and economic factors that were an issue of the time. And that they were also living a life of persecution and subjugation by their employers or the authorities in charge of mid 19th century Prussia as they strove to try and provide a better life and future for their child.

The mood in the image is one of total melancholy and sorrow; no one is looking at either of the other people in the scene or indeed at the viewer, creating a sense of disconnection between them and their environment. As the woman stares blankly, either in a state of acceptance or shock at the loss or possible loss of her child, the man stands turned away from the woman and the viewer with his arm and hand up covering his face. Either to hide his sorrow or possibly a feeling of shame, as he offers something to the woman.

In Martha Kearns' sensitive and intimate biography of Kollwitz 'Käthe Kollwitz: Woman and Artist' which is very much of a biographical and narrative nature, we can begin to get an excellent sense of the social and political climate of the time and how this left Kollwitz increasingly unnerved and angered. In one passage she highlights one such issue that affected Kollwitz deeply, that with the rise of Capitalism in Germany:

‘The recently displaced poor were thoroughly alienated from German society – usually, permanently – ghettoized from the upper classes’

(Kearns, M. 1976)

Hunger

In this woodcut print Kollwitz again utilises her mark making skills and balance of light and dark to create a sombre mood. The harsh angular strokes that she uses to pick out the details of the faces, surrounded by the dense blackness of their environment, create a sense of exclusion and disempowerment. As their sunken faces and expressions and the shadows become one. The title indicates that these people are starving and one of them appears to have his hand around his own throat, maybe choking or it could be symbolic to the fact that the poor are unheard and have no true voice. We can’t see any of the eyes of the adults in this image, although they appear to be staring straight at us, which could be interpreted as them being not significant enough to register as important to us. But could also leave the viewer exposed as they are subjected to the feeling that could almost be voyeuristic as one could do nothing but simply look on. The child in the image seems to be a little less harshly portrayed in the sense that Kollwitz has used softer, more rounded marks in forming her face. We can also see the eyes of the child unlike the adults although her unnatural looking otherworldly gaze seems to be going beyond us, either fascinated by something or in some sort of transcendent state. The style and content of this piece could also draw comparisons with other artists work that may have been influenced by it. Such as Joan Eardly and her depictions of the street urchins of the poverty stricken areas of Glasgow, and also of Peter Howson who’s often strained and sinewy human figures represent an immense feeling of despair and suffering.

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Käthe Kollwitz,

Hunger,

1924, Woodcut.

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Never Again War

This charcoal drawing is an example of Kollwitz total opposition to war and conflict and the waste of human life as a result of war, either directly in battle or as a result of the ensuing poverty and degradation of society that follows as a consequence of prolonged conflict. It’s interesting to note that with the combination of the image and text, and the composition of the figure, it has the qualities of a propaganda type poster looking to inspire action and promote an idealistic cause. The fact that it is hand drawn and handwritten gives it a sense of urgency and defiance and a feel of being for and from the common people so to speak. So it would be a call to instigate change as it were as opposed to being subjected to it. Although extremely pacifistic and never the advocate of violence or aggression Kollwitz nonetheless believed that as a pacifist it wasn’t enough to simply stand by and observe calmly, but that it requires action and hard work.

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Käthe Kollwitz,

Never Again War,

1924, Charcoal on Paper.

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CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

List of Plates

Käthe Kollwitz,

March of the Weavers,

c. 1893-1897, Line Etching and Sandpaper.

Käthe Kollwitz,

The Downtrodden,

1900, Etching and Aquatint on Paper, 12 1/8" x 9 ¾".

Käthe Kollwitz,

Hunger,

1924, Woodcut.

Käthe Kollwitz,

Never Again War,

1924, Charcoal on Paper