Alex Snepvangers' Stylism : An Influence- Kathe Kollwitz

Kathe Kollwitz

Artist

1. When/ where was the artist born?

Konigsbeng, East Prussia (now Kalliningrad, Russia), July 8 1867.

2. Give a brief biography of the artist.

Kathe Kollwitz depicted the plight of the poor and denounced the atrocities of war through her artworks. She started art classes early, at age 12, she made copies of historical artworks. She had an early interest in working class people and their lives, as she lived in Germany, when there were many poor people, and the suffering there was very great. She then continued her studies in Berlin, where she developed print making skills with woodcuts, etching and lithographs. Kollwitz turned to etching and lithography to depict social issues. Her marriage in 1891 to physician Karl Kollwitz, and his medical practice in a poor, working class section of Berlin further exposed her to a wide range of suffering and tragedy which would become the subject of her work over the next fifty years. She produced a series of works reflecting her concern with the themes of war, poverty, working class life and the lives of ordinary women.

3. Art Movement

Social

Woodblock making

German Expressionism

4. Art Era

Modernism

6. Artistic Influences

Influenced by Max Klinger’s work. Max Klinger (February 18, 1857 – July 5, 1920) was a German Symbolist painter, sculptor, printmaker, and writer. He was an admirer of and shortly became a skilled and imaginative engraver in his own right. He began creating sculptures in the early 1880s.

She was greatly influenced by her art teachers, at the school she went to in Berlin.

7. Personal Influences

Her brother died when she was little. In which, from that experience, she contracted a mental disorder (Alice in Wonderland Syndrome). This could be a trigger and inspiration for some of her artworks.

In 1914 her son Peter was killed in Flanders. The loss of Peter contributed to her socialist and pacifist political sympathies.

Grandfather’s lessons in religion and sociology.

8. Other Influences

In Germany in the period of Modernism, there was a lot of poverty, and suffering. The world hadn’t developed very much. Kethe Kollwitz used these issues in her artmaking, and she portrayed her views on the issues, throughout her artworks.

Another influence was the working class, and the horrible day-to-day lifestyle that people had to live. She wanted to portray this to make people understand, and help to make it get better.

Artwork

Find 2x Artworks for each artist

Explain the kind of subject matter the artist has represented for each artwork.

(i) My first example image, “Misery”, expresses the powerful emotions that a mother feels with the loss of her child. Misery is set in a small, dark room with a poor woman mourning over her dead child.

By using only white and black, Kath Kollwitz creates a bleak and dramatic image. The small child evokes not only sadness but also tragedy.

By having the mother clutching her head and leaning down towards the child, Kathe makes the woman seem frustrated and depressed. The cramped room with a small window and a spinning wheel behind the woman gives off an obvious image of poverty, as they are not living in very luxurious places, but rather helping others in their medical vacility.

(ii) The second image “March of the Weavers” ; is that the subjects to the left near the front of the congregation stare down, their jaws set with forbidding determination, while the marches behind them raise their pitchforks in the air and clench their fists, opening their mouths with exclamations of what the viewer can only imagine to be motivational or rallying cries. However, not all are convinced that the march will be successful. The mustached man to the left quietly holds his ax to his side, an expression of deep sorrow upon his face, while the mother near the front carries her child upon her back. Hunching forward she appears burdened both by the weight of her child and the weight of her worries. The marcher behind her carries a sickle precariously close to her child in an ominous and foreboding image of death.

Describe the style of the artwork. Include use of colour, cutting lines, lines, technique and brush-strokes (if any).

The art piece revolves around the child through the use of different shades of light. They are mostly are black and white and very dark. They show the depressing way that people had to live at the time the artworks were made.

(i) The lines in Example 1 “March of the Weavers” show the heaviness of the workers jackets and the coldness is conveyed through the black and white patterns. The lines also show the direction that the workers are marching in.

(ii) In the second example, “Misery” the heavy and dark areas dominate the picture and there is very little hope in this dark house.

Is the artist making a social comment through visual imagery?

Yes, Kathe Kollwitz is depicting the violence of war, social justice and inhumanity, throughout all her artworks.

(i) In “Misery”, Kollwitz uses the image of a woman in mourning to relay her own personal feelings about her corrupted society. With the use of a mother with a dead child, it compels the viewer to feel sympathy for the mother. Furthermore, the frustration that the mother seems to be experiencing in the lithograph not only represents the frustration of being unable to save her child, but also a frustration towards the society that led her to end up in such a tragic state. On the other hand, it also sparks curiosity about why the little child is in the bed, leading up to the viewing of the woman in anguish. The woman in mourning is a subtle way for Kathe Kollwitz to convey her own message of the horrors of poverty and oppression. Kathe created this piece to express not only the tragedy of having a dead child, but the horrors the poor have to experience; the mother could not even give the child much needed medical care because of poverty.

(ii) Yes, she is making a social comment through “March of the Weavers” as she is trying to get people to see that things have to be changed, and that people are trying to change them, especially people in the working class, whom deal so heavily with poverty.

Define the meaning of the artwork.

(i) Misery is a poor woman mourning over her dead child. It expresses the powerful emotions that a mother feels with the loss of her child. The mother is depicting frustration of being unable to save her child, but also a frustration towards the society that led her to end up in such a tragic state. It is set in a small, dark and run down room, most likely portraying that it is in a working class area, where the rate of poverty was very high.

(ii) The March of the Weavers, is about a rally, where the weavers are trying to get people to listen, and to give them more rights. The people who did this rally are in the working class, and as you can see through the image, it is depicted very well.

World

Examine how current or historical events at the time the artist was alive shape the artist’s practice.Current events at the time Kathe Kollwitz was practicing were- The poor social conditions in Germany, during the late 19^th and 20^th centuries.- When living in Berlin, Kathe Kollwitz lived in the poorer part of the city.- At the time WW1 was happening she practiced her artworks, and war and uprising were very common and significant in her artworks.- (Personal – son, Peter was killed during WW1)- The treatment of women in the time she was practicing.She used many of these issues in the subject matter of her artworks, they were her main focuses. Most of her artworks were quite grim, reflecting these images.Justify your examination of the influence of current or historical world events on the artwork.Some of the themes of Kathe Kollwitz’s work included poverty, war, working class life, and the lives of ordinary people can be seen in both these artworks. The way that the characters are portrayed gives us a sense of their misery and what a horrible time period they were living through. Summarise how the country where the artist was born or lived influenced the artworks.Even though Kollwitz was born in Russia she lived most of her life in Germany. Not only did she lose her son in WW1, but she lost her grandson in WW2. Whilst Kollowitz was practicing she was the first woman elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts, however, when Hitler came to power she was kicked out of the academy because her art was classified as degenerate. AudienceGive a personal evaluation of the artworkDo you think the artwork is successful in conveying a meaning to the audience through the use of line and colour? What is your personal response to the artwork?I think both of these artworks are successful in conveying the sadness and poor quality of life that some people had I the late 19^th and early 20^th Century. The lack of colour highlights the drab environment and the dramatic lines show the emotion of the poorest citizens. Find a critical or an audience response to the artwork from the time it was made; also find a critical or an audience response to the artwork from contemporary times. Interpret how audience response may differ or remain the same today.Audiences today find her work was very descriptive of the society at the time, and this is different to when Hitler came to power and considered her work “Degenerate”. The reason that her art was thought to be “degenerate” was that it did not show the country, Germany is a very good light, as it did not show the highlights of the nation, but rather showed poor people, disease, loss and poor working conditions, so it was not considered to be acceptable during the war.

10. Frames

Subjective Frame:

Kollwitz’s works are best described using the subjective and cultural frames, as she was greatly affected by personal events that happened in her life. She tried to show the emotion of people around her and the events and culture in which she lived. The artworks that I have selected to discuss, show her concern for the ‘common person’ and especially the horrible things that could affect their lives. These types of subjects wee not typically shown at the time she made the woks.

Cultural Frame: The different ways that Kollwitz’s artworks were received at different times is shown in the following example. The culture is which she worked changed because of the war. In 1932 the war memorial to her son Peter - The Parents - was dedicated at Vladslo military cemetery in Flanders. Kollwitz became the first woman to be elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts, but in 1933, when Hitler came to power, she was expelled from the Academy. In 1936 she was barred by the Nazis from exhibiting, her art was classified as 'degenerate' and her works were removed from galleries.
In 1919 she worked on a commemorative woodcut dedicated to Karl Liebknecht, the revolutionary socialist murdered in 1919. Kathe believed that art should reflect the social conditions of the time and during the 1920s she produced a series of works reflecting her concern with the themes of war, poverty, working class life and the lives of ordinary women.
Structural Frame: Many of Kollwitz’s artworks have a similar look to them, as they show the darkness of the time in which she lived. They way that Kollwitz uses the composition to emphasize the sorrow is recognisable in the examples I have chosen. She makes some parts of the image lighter to focus on the misery of the child for example and to lead you eye around the image she uses dark and light shapes.

Postmodern Frame: Many artists today have looked at the work of Kollwitz and have been influenced by her work. She was able to make art about the poorest sections of the community and through printmaking she produced many images in a series, which meant that her work was seen by a lot of people.