Death

Death seizes the Children, sheet 3 of the series »Death«, 1934 & Death seizes a Woman, sheet 4 of the series »Death«, 1934

“Apart from physical pain and misery, the human condition is subject to the laws of life in that separation and death are part of everyone's life” -Helga Coulter (in reference to a diary entry by Kollwitz written in 1922)

Kollwitz acknowledgement and partial acceptance of death has been a prominent topic throughout her career; of which has focused on “…her need to produce art aimed at alleviating people's feelings of being at a loss and being overwhelmed at a time when such feelings were prevalent.”(*) If she could do such than it would potentially help herself with coming to terms with it as well, “She felt this to be her duty, a duty deeply rooted in her family history.”(*) Kollwitz writes: “The abyss still hasn’t closed. It has swallowed millions and it is still yawning,” (**) of which is best illustrated by the personification of death she created in this cycle of work. His presence is heavy and engulfs the figures before they are able to make an escape.

Through her work is a personal illustration of her pacifism, it is the overwhelming grief she experienced that allows it to be open enough to relate to other mothers. To keep the memory of the departed alive she created moving works with intentions of a push for change, to live in a world without war would be the ideal. “She sets the abstract concepts of redemptive sacrifice, of death for the nation, and her belief in life after death against the overwhelming significance of the embodied individual who dies and is gone” (**) To have witnessed the death and loss of so many in her life caused her to later take on the a bit of pessimism at the end of her life. She spent so many years trying to call attention to the results of war and a countries inattentiveness towards their civilians needs that she felt if we really wanted a change we would have to become more of a “brotherhood of man”.

(*)Coulter, Helga “Pictures on My Analyst’s Walls: Reflections on the Art of Kathe Kollwitz, the Nazis and the Art of Psychoanalyis.” British Journal of Psychotherapy Issue 4, no.32 (2016)

(**)Ingrid Sharp. "Kääthe Kollwitz's Witness to War: Gender, Authority, and Reception." Women in German Yearbook 27 (2011): 87-107.

Both images are from: https://www.kollwitz.de/en/series-death-overview