The artwork “Woman with Dead Child” by artist Kathe Kollwitz is mournful, to say the least. When I first looked at this artwork, I felt sympathy and much emotion. A feeling of sympathy for the mother, who lost her child, and the people who had to face the war during this time period. I was surprised when I first came across this artwork, as it is very shocking and severe. When you first see the artwork, you wonder what happened to the child. If you never read the title of the artwork, you may think that the mother is just loving her child. However, once you see the title you realize that the mother is grieving over her child. You almost cringe at the thought of the pain that the mother is going through. The figure in Kollwit’z painting is depicted …show more content…
Kollwit’z painted her whole life. She studied art in Munich, where she discovered printmaking and drawing was her passion. She lived through WWI and died right before the end of WWII. Unfortunately, Kollwit’z lost her son in WWI and her grandson, Peter, in WWII. In 1943, Kollwitz had to escape the bombing of Berlin. This was six months before her apartment was reduced to rubble by ally bombs, resulting in the damage to her artwork. Kollwitz expresses the horrors that she viewed during war and her lifetime. She did not only face the death of her son, but many other deaths. Her siblings passed away when she was younger, leaving her with anxiety. Kollwit’z utilizes painting and constructing art as a form of therapy. She expresses her grief and sorrow though her artwork. Her artwork consists of mournful themes that exhibit poverty, war, trauma, sorrow, depression, struggle, and death. Her artwork also has positive themes that relate to motherhood, love, passion, compassion, and protection. Kollwit’z life was burdensome; as she faced several deaths and hard times in her life. Her artwork explains the pain she faced in her life time. An artist similar to Kollwitz work is Michelangelo. Michelangelo’s work “Pieta” is alike to Kollwit’z “Woman with Dead Child”. In Pieta, a mother is sitting on a throne as she holds her child, who looks like a teenager. Both Kollwit’z and Michelangelo’s artwork illustrates love, passion, and affection over …show more content…
Since Kollwit’z lost her son, she expresses the pain she felt by letting her emotions go by art. This artwork explains the pain felt by those who have lost love ones in WWI, or have just lost loved ones in general. This artwork especially hits home with mother’s or fathers who have lost their babies. The artwork also addresses the rough times that the working class had to face during the war and times of poverty. The artist expressed the feeling of stress, sorrow, anxiety, grief, and much more in just one picture. I, also, think that this picture is a symbol of love and protection. You can see the strength, love, and compassion that the mother holds. She holds her baby so tight that you can almost feel the grip. She loves her child and still holds on to it, even though it is dead. She may also be protecting the child from danger and the bad things in life. I also interpreted that maybe the mother was holding the child so tight as a symbol of the desire to have the baby back in her safe womb. The mother shows a form of ownership over her child; she never wants it to leave her
When that room is entered all voices are hushed, and all merriment silenced. The place is as holy as a church. In the centre of the canvas is the Virgin Mother with a young, almost girlish face or surpassing loveliness. In her eyes affection and wonder are blended, and the features and the figure are the most spiritual and beautiful in the world's art.
This was from the mind of young Grealy, the girl who had a depressed and angry mother, the mother that taught her that it was never okay to show weakness or cry (Grealy 30). Young Grealy believed that the way she earned acceptance during her first visit to the ER could carry over into her home life. I think that this moment encompassed all that Grealy was feeling at this time. The feeling that she was responsible for her mother’s unhappiness and depression, the feeling that if she showed she was not afraid, no one else in her family would be either, and the feeling that if she was not brave, her family would be unhappy forever. This was important because she felt that she had discovered a way to make her family whole again.
The painting depicts a mother and her four children, who are all leaning on her as she looks down solemnly, her tired, despondent expression suggests she felt trapped in her roles as being a mother and a wife. The woman and her children are clearly the focal point of the artwork as the bright colours used to paint them stand out impeccably against the dull, lifeless colours of the background. This painting appears to be centred around the ideology that women are home-keepers, whose main role is to satisfy and assist her husband while simultaneously minding the children and keeping the home tidy and ready for his return. The social consequences of this artwork could have been that the woman could have been berated for not taking pleasure out of being a mother and raising her children, as a woman should. She could have been made redundant as her husband may have felt as though she is no longer useful if she couldn’t adequately adhere to her roles as a mother and a
"Nominated for a 1998 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War is Anita Lobel's gripping memoir of surviving the Holocaust. A Caldecott-winning illustrator of such delightful picture books as On Market Street, it is difficult to believe Lobel endured the horrific childhood she did. From age 5 to age 10, Lobel spent what are supposed to be carefree years hiding from the Nazis, protecting her younger brother, being captured and marched from camp to camp, and surviving completely dehumanizing conditions. A terrifying story by any measure, Lobel's memoir is all the more haunting as told from the first-person, child's-eye view. Her girlhood voice tells it like it is, without irony or even complete understanding, but with matter-of-fact honesty and astonishing attention to detail. She carves vivid, enduring images into readers' minds. On hiding in the attic of the ghetto: "We were always told to be very quiet. The whispers of the trapped grown-ups sounded like the noise of insects rubbing their legs together." On being discovered while hiding in a convent: "They lined us up facing the wall. I looked at the dark red bricks in front of me and waited for the shots. When the shouting continued and the shots didn't come, I noticed my breath hanging in thin puffs in the air." On trying not to draw the attention of the Nazis: "I wanted to shrink away. To fold into a small invisible thing that had no detectable smell. No breath. No flesh. No sound."
World War I and II brought the worst of times for some people; loved ones were lost, families were separated, homes were destroyed, and innocent lives were taken during this time. There are many ways to deal with these hardships; Jewish poet, Avrom Sutzkever, used his hard times as inspiration for his writing and as a way to deal with the war and survive it (INSERT CITATION). This part of history also resulted in other great works of art as a way to deal with what the war brought, during and after the war was over. Avrom Sutzkever wrote his poem “Frozen Jews,” using such dark and depressing imagery, connotation, and diction because of his historical and biographical background.
Furthermore, Kathe Kollwitz lived a very prodigious yet dynamic evocative life and her legacy will be in eternal revere. She was born on July 8, 1867 in Konigsberg of East Prussia. She was born in the mid-late years of the 19th century. Kollwitz had the desire to study art and pursued this ambition in Berlin. She worked under Karl Stauffer-Bern at the sc...
Art could be displayed in many different forms; through photography, zines, poetry, or even a scrapbook. There are many inspirational women artists throughout history, including famous women artists such Artemisia Gentileschi and Georgia O’Keeffe. When searching for famous female artists that stood out to me, I found Frida Kahlo, and Barbara Kruger. Two very contrasting type of artists, though both extremely artistic. Both of these artists are known to be feminists, and displayed their issues through painting and photography. Frida Kahlo and Barbara Kruger’s social and historical significance will be discussed.
On the second stanza, the woman was haunted by the voices of her child in her mind. She said that under the circumstance she is right now, she has no choice but to have a abortion. Then she express her feeling and felt sorry about what she had done. “And your lives from your unfinished reach, If I stole your births and your names, Your straight baby tears and your games” (Gwendolyn Brooks) she show remorse that she stolen her child life and her child would get to experience the first tear and games. So now her baby already going through death.
Feminist issues have played an important role in creating ideas for female artists to use in their work. Putting out controversial themes such as this promotes individual thought on the topic of feminism. Kruger and Höch both took it upon themselves to put out these ideas through many of their key artworks. In 1920, Höch came out with her photomontage, Das Schöne Mädchen (The Beautiful Girl) (Fig. 1), which at the time was one of very few photomontages that Dada artists had included female figures in. (Hemus, 104). In this particular work she puts together many different images that create a certain meaning that the viewer is left to interpret. She uses a fema...
One of the many symbols that Picasso used was an anguished mother with a dead child. On the far left of the painting, we can see that a woman’s head is being thrown back and her mouth is wide open, as if she is screaming out on the top of her lungs while holding onto the body of a small, limp child. Perhaps she was a mother who was crying out in pain and despair over the her dead child in her arms. Her eyes, nose and lips were drawn in the shape of tears which may symbolize how much distress she was feeling after she realized that her child became a victim of the
“The Grafin von Scholfeld with her Daughter” is oil on canvas art piece painted in 1793. It is a painting of a woman holding her daughter on her lap, the woman being “The Grafin von Schonfeld.” The woman is dressed in clothing that is from the upper class or a royalty stature in the late 1700’s. The clothing looks rich in material and sleek like silk in the colors of wine and a rich green. She has a covering on her head that looks like an extravagant scarf that drapes over her shoulder on one side, also made of the same silky material used for her dress. The woman has pale skin, reddish brown hair, bluish eyes, and rosy cheeks. Her eyes look very real and penetrating when you examine the painting. The daughter is about the age of 5 or 6 years old. Her arms are around her mother’s neck and legs draped across her mother’s lap. The daughter is wearing a white fluid dress that looks thin in material with a red sash around her midsection. The daughter has the same reddish brown hair and rosy cheeks. The mothers and daughters eyes are equally as big in size, while the child’s eyes seem also very real and youthful.
In an empty room at the Timken Museum of Art hangs one of the most iconic paintings of Johannes Vermeer, the astonishing painting, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter. In the painting a pale woman’s stands patiently while reading a letter. The woman appears to be wearing a blue jacket and a long gray skirt, and only gazing at the letter, ignoring all of her surroundings. The top right of the painting seems to be a map of the Netherlands, which attracts the viewer because it explains the setting of where the painting took place. The blue jacket around the woman’s torso appears to exaggerate the woman’s stomach, giving the impression that she might be pregnant. The blue chairs resemble a sign of absence as if she lives alone. The light on the top left shines on her face which enhances the viewer’s view of the woman’s facial expression. Johannes Vermeer’s interpretation of complex colors, the light, and her body language inflicts a persuasion on the viewer that the women is traumatized by the news in the letter.
Aristotle once claimed that, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” Artists, such as Louise-Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun and Mary Cassatt, captured not only the way things physically appeared on the outside, but also the emotions that were transpiring on the inside. A part no always visible to the viewer. While both artists, Le Brun and Cassatt, worked within the perimeters of their artistic cultures --the 18th century in which female artists were excluded and the 19th century, in which women were artistically limited-- they were able to capture the loving relationship between mother and child, but in works such as Marie Antoinette and Her Children and Mother Nursing her Child 1898,
Furthermore, the art piece is only in shades of black and white, which really intensifies the sadness and darkness. The expressions on the faces, the quality of the lines, the texture, and the absence of color capture the deep emotion of the figures in such a compelling way. During the period in which the piece was created, it was popular to paint in a socialistic style. Kollwitz accurately did this in all of her pieces by depicting social movements, peasant uprisings, the impact of war, and the life of the worker. Her style can be categorized even further by saying that it was a form of German expressionism. This
The poem “The action in the ghetto of Rohatyn, March 1942” by Alexander Kimel is an amazing literary work which makes the reader understand the time period of the Holocaust providing vivid details. Kimel lived in an “unclean” area called the ghetto, where people were kept away from German civilians. The poet describes and questions himself using repetition and rhetorical questions. He uses literary devices such as repetition, comparisons, similes and metaphors to illustrate the traumatizing atmosphere he was living in March 1942.