Kathe Kollwitz was a famous German graphic artist whose son was murdered during the World War I. She used to have leftist and pacifist views and right before the start of the war she predicted the upcoming “blackest despair and dejections” (Kollwitz, 1914, p. 430). She felt sympathetic with the other German women that had to let their children join the German army. When her son was killed, she wrote many times in her diary about her “contradictory position of war” (Kollwitz, 1916, p. 430). Of course, her entries were very emotional and full of mourning, because she found it unbearable to see that the Germany was absolutely powerless and a lot of soldiers continued to die. In one of her entries made on October 30, 1918 Kathe Kollwitz wrote a phrase “Seed for the planting must not be ground” meaning that Germany had to surrender and take care of the young people inside the country. This phrase was later used as the name for Kollwitz’s last lithographic.
She wanted to memorize her son Peter by creating a memorial. In December 1914 she wrote that she was going to create “Peter’s form, lying stretched out, the father at the head, the mother at the feet” (Kollwitz, 1914, p.430). Then she changed her mind and wanted to have Peter’s figure on top above the parents lying outstretched and holding the hands “in answer to the call for sacrifice: Here I am” (Kollwitz, 1914, p.430). However, she did not realize her idea and instead created the memorial with two figures that was called “The Grieving Parents”.
One of her most remarkable post-war artworks is the drawing “The Parents” that was an important element of the portfolio that depicted the sorrows that the German people had to experience during the World War I. In the drawing, the grieving parents do not look like human beings. They are hiding their faces, because they feel responsible for the death of their child. By means of this drawing Kathe Kollwitz wanted to show that the people failed to do everything possible to prevent the war and as the result millions of soldiers died in the pointless geopolitical conflict.
References
Kollwitz, K. The Diary and Letters of Kathe Kollwitz. August 1914 – January 1919.
