Widow II, from "Kreig" (War)
Käthe Kollwitz German
Kollwitz’s leftist politics and mission to make progressive art widely available had a great influence internationally and aligned with the goals of Taller de Gráfica Popular artists. In the portfolio War, Kollwitz created moving portrayals of suffering. These seven woodcuts, published in the wake of World War I, are powerful indictments of combat and have become universal symbols for grieving. In Widow II, a corpse-like woman lies on the ground, a limp baby slumped across her chest. The stiffness and skeletal quality of her body support associations with death, while the stark black reflects Kollwitz’s comment that "pain is totally dark." Kollwitz herself suffered great loss. At the beginning of the war, her younger son Peter volunteered for combat with her help and died shortly later while fighting in Belgium.
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