Die Gefangenen (The Prisoners)

Throughout her career, Kollwitz consistently exposed the exploitation of the working class, with a particular focus on depicting hardships experienced by women and children. Peasants’ War is based on a historical account of the German nobility’s brutality and the resultant revolts of 1524 and 1525. The series chronicles sexual violence and backbreaking labor under a repressive regime, the revolutionaries’ preparation for battle, and combat; it concludes with the uprising’s defeat. The Prisoners, the last print in the series, depicts captured fighters bound and compressed in a pen as they await their fate. Their writhing bodies blend into a mass, amplifying the sense of claustrophobia while also suggesting strength and future rebellion. Contemporary viewers would likely have related to the suffering shown here.