Art that shatters the human heart
How Käthe Kollwitz voiced the sufferings of poor people
Should art be heartwarming or heartbreaking?
Female artists were expected to create pretty images of women and children to warm viewers’ hearts. But Käthe Kollwitz focused on the poverty, illness and death dominating the lives of working class women and children.
“Art should grip and shatter the human heart,” she wrote in her diary in 1920.
A small bronze sculpture by Kollwitz, “Mother and Child,” belongs to the Art Gallery of Hamilton. It is on show in “Speaking for Herself,” an exhibition of work by women artists from the permanent collection.
Kollwitz (1867-1945) was inspired by her life in a working class district of Berlin.
In her art she drew attention to contemporary social problems. That makes her a social realist. This movement began around the middle of the 19th century. It documented the problems faced by the working classes in industrialized countries such as Germany, France and Britain.
“It is my duty to voice the sufferings of people, the sufferings that never end and are as big as mountains,” she wrote.
Kollwitz wanted her art to inspire powerful members of society to create better living and working conditions for those less fortunate. At the same time, she hoped her art might incite the poor to social activism.
In about 1910 Kollwitz began to fashion sculptures out of clay. Fifteen were cast in bronze and multiple copies were made over the years.
There are more than two dozen copies of the AGH’s “Mother and Child.” The original dates between 1911 and 1915. The first bronze was cast in the late 1930s. The AGH bronze was cast posthumously.
“Mother and Child” shows a seated woman, shoulders slumped, with her arms around a child who sits in her lap. She rests her chin on the child’s head. Her arms enclose and draw the child into her body. Her big hands are those of a working woman.
Kollwitz ennobles and dignifies the downtrodden mother and child by making them look like traditional images of Mary and the Christ Child.
The scarf or veil the mother wears, for instance, is what poor women wear. But Mary is also veiled. And Mary can be depicted holding her child on her lap in a similarly protective embrace.
Moreover, Mary holds her adult son close to her body when mourning his death in traditional Lamentation, or Pieta, scenes. For Kollwitz, such a link with death works well, since she often draws attention to the death of children.
A more abbreviated image can be found in “Rest in the Peace of his Hands,” a clay relief — not the original — belonging to the McMaster Museum of Art.
Like the “Mother and Child” sculpture, the relief comprises
two figures in an embrace. But all we see is a pair of hands and some fabric folds enclosing a small face and hand. The eyes are closed.
The original was made for her family grave. Is death offering the kind of release and comfort that life cannot? This is an idea Kollwitz explored throughout her prints.
Kollwitz was best known as a printmaker. She liked printmaking because it made her art accessible to many people.
In one etching she depicts herself in a head and shoulders pose. With her hand to her head, she assumes a traditional and appropriate gesture of mourning and contemplation.
This etching belongs to the McMaster Museum of Art and is not on show. But numerous Kollwitz prints and sculptures can be seen at the Art Gallery of Ontario until Sept. 30.