War LanguagesWomen and war in the art ofKäthe Kollwitz

Vesa Matteo Piludu

University of Helsinki

Department of Art Research

Millet Gleaners 1857

Angelus

Shepherdess with Her Flock1864

TitleThe WeedersDate 1868

Song of the Lark, 1884

Woman Sewing by Lamplight 1870

Jean Francois Millet - 1850

Millet Winnower 1847-8

Courbet, The grain Sifters

Gustave Courbet, Sleeping spinner 1857

A woman Asleep 1657

Daumier, Honor Laveuse au Quai d'Anjou (Laundress on the Quai d'Anjou) c. 1860

Daumier, Honor The Burden (The Laundress) c. 1850-53

Degas, women ironig

Degas

Degas’ penetrating observation, captured subtle differences in people’s faces and body language (especially within different economic classes).

Degas respected the hard-working immigrants from Eastern Europe, especially working women.

Woman ironing', Edgar Degas, c.1890

The art of Degas was that of a 'Naturalist', depicting what was considered “vulgar”

laundresses were commonly thought of as borderline prostitutes - in a way that was almost scientific

Two washer women by Degas

Il quarto stato, Pellizza da Valpredo (1901)

Käthe Kollwitz - Farmers' war

Much of the art of modern social protest traces its roots to the work of German artist Käthe Kollwitz.

One of a cycle of prints and drawings which the youthful Kollwitz produced on the theme of peasant revolt

The cycle hearkened back to the Bauernkrieg (literally, "farmers' war") of the sixteenth century while portraying the dire straits of agricultural laborers in contemporary Germany.

Käthe Kollwitz Ploughers, etching and aquatint, 1906

The Plougher of her Peasant War series symbolises the oppressed of every age. Not the man behind the plough, but reduced to pulling it himself, he is a virtual beast of burden

Kathe Kollwitz (German, 1867 - 1945)Brot! (Bread!)1933

Arbeitslosigkeit, 1909, (Unemployment )

Hunger, 1925

Käthe KollwitzHunger 1925

Mother Holding Child in Her Arms, Second Version 1910

Kathe Kollwitz, Poverty, 1893-94

Käthe Kollwitz (German, 1867-1945), Tod in Wasser / Death in the water

this lithograph, produced shortly after Hitler assumed power, shows a drowned family, perhaps a prophetic vision of Germany's future as a country about to be drowning in death

Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945), Woman with her Dead Child (1903)

Käthe KollwitzDeath Seizes the Children 1934

KATHE KOLLWITZ 1867 - 1945Woman in the Lap of Death (Tod mit Frau im Schoss)Woodcut on ivory wove paper, 1921

Rosa Luxemburg

Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were among the founders of the Berlin Spartakusbund (Spartacus League)

On January 15, 1919, Liebknecht and Luxemburg were shot to death during the Spartacus Revolt on the pretext that they were attempting escape.

In this instance Kollwitz emphasizes grief and the human element over any explicit political reference

lmost whetted by Käthe Kollwitz

No wonder the resentment of Kollwitz's peasant woman is also sharpened as she whets her scythe-in an etching significantly titled Almost whetted

Käthe Kollwitz (German, 1867-1945)Weberzug [March of the Weavers], fourth plate in Ein Weberaustand [Revolt of the Weavers], 1897

Käthe Kollwitz Revolt, THE PEASANT WAR 1899-1908

Käthe Kollwitz, Outbreak, 1903

Kathe Kollwitz, Killed in Action (1921)

Kathe Kollwitz, Widows and Orphans (1919)

The parents

Mothers

After the Battle by Kathe Kollwitz.

The Survivors, a drawing by the German artist Kathe Kollwitz, was used for a peace congress in The Hague, Holland, in 1922.

The survivors say: War to War!

The text on the right side says: Do not teach the children to glorify the war and war hero's; teach them to despise war