Käthe KollwitzGerman, 1867–1945The Battlefield
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Minneapolis Institute of Art
Minneapolis, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
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- Source
- The museum
About the work
Käthe Kollwitz is acclaimed for her poignant scenes of human suffering, especially the tragic consequences of poverty and disease among women and children. A consummate draftsman, she relied on the graphic arts-in the form of prints, illustrations, and posters-as a powerful instrument of political allegiance to her left-leaning social agenda. She was anti-war, anti-violence, and a believer in the resilience of the human spirit.
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Kollwitz's dramatic night scene, part of her Peasant War print cycle, depicts a mother searching for her dead son among a field of corpses. In the soft light of the lantern, her weathered hand is illuminated as she touches the chin of a young man, perhaps her own child. Rather than portray the chaos and brutality of battle, Kollwitz shows us the agonizing aftermath of the fighting when the bodies of the dead were claimed by their loved ones. Though the scene alludes to the atrocities of a 16th-century workers revolt, it stands as a universal statement of a mother's love for her son, made more heartbreaking in that it foreshadows the death of Kollwitz's own son, Peter, who was killed in battle shortly after the start of the First World War (1914-1918).
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Particulars
- Accession number
- P.12, 818
In the catalog
Sources
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art — © Minneapolis Institute of Art
Meanwhile, in the life of Käthe Kollwitz
The whole life1906 · Award
Villa Romana Prize
1907
The Villa Romana Prize: a studio in Florence
Her etching Outbreak won the Villa Romana Prize, which gave her a studio in Florence for 1907. She completed no work there but later recalled the impact of early Renaissance art.
22 October 1914
Her son Peter is killed at the front
Her younger son, Peter, was killed on the battlefield of the First World War. He is buried in Belgium, in the Vladslo German war cemetery.
1917
A jubilee exhibition at Paul Cassirer’s
On her fiftieth birthday the galleries of Paul Cassirer mounted a retrospective of one hundred and fifty of her drawings.
1918
An open letter against Dehmel’s call to arms
When Richard Dehmel called for more soldiers to fight in 1918, she wrote an impassioned letter to the newspaper that printed his call, arguing that there should be no more war and that “seed corn must not be ground”. As the war wound down and old men and children were summoned to fight, she also implored in a published statement that enough had died and that not another man should fall.
1919
The first woman professor at the Prussian Academy of Arts
In 1919 she was appointed professor and elected a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts, the first woman to hold the post. Membership brought a regular income, a large studio and a full professorship.
