Persistent artist anti-war voices in a warring Europe

Homework for next week Use your notes of our last lesson on pro- and anti-war voices in Europe before, during and after World War I,

• Explore works by Käthe Kollwitz at the MOMA and beyond,

• Look intensively at her woodcut,

• Select a piece of homework, and

• Prepare a 2 minutes presentation for next week’s class.

• You have an option to work on your own or in pairs, except for those of you who select no 2 who have to work in pairs.

Käthe Kollwitz. Die Witwe I. (1923, prints executed 1921-22) Woodcut cover from a portfolio of seven woodcuts and one woodcut cover, titled Krieg. Dimensions: composition (irreg.): 37.8 x 24.5 cm; sheet (folded): 67.2 x 48.3 cm. Publisher: Emil Richter, Dresden. Printer: probably Fritz Voigt, Berlin. Edition: 400 (including 100 hand-printed, numbered and signed on imperial Japan paper; 100 hand-printed, numbered and signed on wove paper; 200 printed from an electrotype plate on imitation japan paper, published in 1924); plus 100 on portfolio cover [this ex.] of edition on imperial Japan paper; plus 8 known state proofs and 5 known proofs before the edition. Credit Line: Gift of the Arnhold Family in memory of Sigrid Edwards MoMA Number: 470.1992.8 Copyright: © 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

SELECT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING SUGGESTED HOMEWORK PIECES:

1) Would you give this woman a voice? Use creatively the empty space around the figure to express in write her feelings, her thoughts, her understanding of the past, and her vision of the future. You will select carefully your words, won’t you?

2) Would you be the widow?

Use creatively your mind, your imagination, your body and your voice, if you like, or even music; form a pair with a peer; alternate in the roles of director and actor; film your work, and then select 1 minute maximum. Your video should make clear the stance of Käthe Kollwitz towards the war.

3) What happened before? What is to happen next? Complete the right and left panels, so as to have a narrative connected to Kollwitz’s idea about the consequences of war. Imitate the wood-cut technique. If needed, copy the structure of the table on a greater scale. Don’t be afraid – showing art mastery isn’t the point, understanding Käthe Kollwitz’s perspective of the war is! (Alternatively, search more on the artist’s work and views, and select two more of her works to paste in the empty panels. Remember that the point is to visualize her perspective of the war.)

4) How Käthe Kollwitz tried to influence people? Use the following sources, do some research in the school library and/or the internet; develop clear positions, support them with details from the artwork, and state your sources. Your text should be no less than 250 words.

b. I have repeatedly attempted to give form to the war. I could never grasp it. Now finally I have finished a series of woodcuts, which in some measure say what I wanted to say. There are seven sheets, entitled: the Sacrifice—the Volunteers—the Parents—the Mothers—the Widows—the People. These sheets should travel throughout the entire world and should tell all human beings comprehensively: that is how it was—we have all endured that throughout these unspeak-ably difficult years.

Käthe Kollwitz: Käthe Kollwitz to Romain Rolland,

October 23, 1922. In Prelinger, 57.

a.

[August 27, 1914]

“A piece by Gabriele Reuter in the Tag on the tasks of women today.

She spoke of the joy of sacrificing—a phrase that struck

me hard. Where do all the women who have watched so carefully over the lives of their beloved

ones get the heroism to send them to face the cannon? I am afraid

that this soaring of the spirit will be followed by the blackest

despair and dejection.”30

Hans Kollwitz (ed.): The Diary and Letters of Käethe

Kollwitz Translated by Richard and Clara Winston (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern UP, 1988) 62..

c. [Her] sons volunteered to serve in WWI and Peter died in

Flanders on October 22, 1914.31 (See Figure 4) Käthe never recovered from the loss of her son. Two years later, on

October 11, 1916, the artist and mother made an heart-wrenching entry in her Diary:

Everything remains as obscure as ever for me. . . It’s not only our youth who go willingly and

joyfully into the war; it’s the same in all nations. People who would be friends under other conditions now hurl themselves at one another as enemies. Are

the young really without judgment? . . . Do the young want war?. . .

This frightful insanity—the youth of Europe hurling themselves at one

another. . . . . It will always be true that life

must be subordinated to the service of an ideal. . . . where has that principle led us?

Peter, Erich. Richard, all have subordinated their lives to the idea of patriotism. The English, Russian and French young men

have done the same. The consequence has been this terrible killing, and the

impoverishment of Europe. . . Has their capacity for sacrifice been exploited in

order to bring on the war? Where are the guilty? Are there any? . . . Has it been a case

of mass madness?. . . I shall never fully understand it all. But it is

clear that our boys, our Peter, went into the war two years ago with pure hearts, and that they were ready

to die for Germany. They died—almost all of them. Died . . . by the millions. . . .

It is a breach of faith with you, Peter, if I can now see only madness in the war? Peter, you died believing.

Was that also true of Erich, Walter, Meier, Gottfried, Richard, Noll? Or had they come to their senses and

were they nevertheless forced to leap into the abyss? Was force involved? . . .32

Kollwitz wrote this two years after her son died in the Great War, while no end to the conflict was in sight. She

recognized the connection between individuals that creates a larger collective.

Leona Catherine Sargent: Visions of World War I: Through the Eyes of Käthe Kollwitz and Otto Dix .Thesis

B.A. Georgetown College, 1986. Wright State University 2012, 9-10.

d. Artists were not immune from the crushing inflation during the early part of the decade after the Great War. Paint and canvas were too expensive so paper and ink became the dominant medium. It was less expensive to make graphics and simpler to market them. Some artists, like Otto Dix, exclusively sold his works for United States currency.13

Käthe Kollwitz, whose preferred method was printmaking, made concessions for the rising cost of supplies. She recorded her thoughts about changing from lithography to the less expensive woodcut technique of printmaking: “. . . . Nowadays lithographic stones can only be got to the studio by begging and pleading, and cost a lot of money . . . Ought I . . . make a fresh start with woodcuts? When I considered that up to now, I always told myself that lithography was the right method for me . . . . Will woodcutting do it?”14

Leona Catherine Sargent:

Visions of World War I: Through the Eyes of Käthe Kollwitz and Otto Dix . Thesis

B.A. Georgetown College, 1986. Wright State University 2012, 5-6.