War Languages Women and war in the art of Käthe Kollwitz

1. War LanguagesWomen and war in the art ofKäthe Kollwitz Vesa Matteo Piludu University of Helsinki Department of Art Research

2. Millet Gleaners 1857

3. Angelus

4. Shepherdess with Her Flock1864

5. TitleThe WeedersDate 1868

6. Song of the Lark, 1884

7. Woman Sewing by Lamplight 1870

8. Jean Francois Millet - 1850

9. Millet Winnower 1847-8

10. Courbet, The grain Sifters

11. Gustave Courbet, Sleeping spinner 1857

12. A woman Asleep 1657

13. Daumier, HonorLaveuse au Quai d'Anjou (Laundress on the Quai d'Anjou)c. 1860

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

15. Degas, women ironig

16. 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.

17. 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

18. Two washer women by Degas

19. Il quarto stato, Pellizza da Valpredo (1901)

20. 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.

21. 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

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

23. Arbeitslosigkeit, 1909, (Unemployment )

24. Hunger, 1925

25. Käthe KollwitzHunger 1925

26. Mother Holding Child in Her Arms, Second Version 1910

27. Kathe Kollwitz, Poverty, 1893-94

28. 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

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

30. Käthe KollwitzDeath Seizes the Children 1934

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

32. 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

33. 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

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

35. Käthe Kollwitz Revolt, THE PEASANT WAR 1899-1908

36. Käthe Kollwitz, Outbreak, 1903

37. Kathe Kollwitz, Killed in Action (1921)

38. Kathe Kollwitz, Widows and Orphans (1919)

39. The parents

40. Mothers

41. After the Battle by Kathe Kollwitz.

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