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Relationship between art and death
Relationship between art and death
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Käthe Kollwitz’s artwork focuses on her ever-changing belief about death. Infant mortality, death as result of war, and her own relation to death are a few ways in which she associates death in her work. She showed death as a worthy sacrifice, as a villain taking life to soon, and finally as a friend coming to escort her to the thereafter. She had an almost obsessive relationship with death. When death was not physically personified in her work it was an unseen enemy portrayed in her figures faces and body expressions. Her view on society and her duty as a mother was entangle with death. Though the topic is morbid her artwork is something to be admired and praised. As the old saying goes beauty is in the eye of the beholder and though death is shown in Kollwitz’s artwork it is somehow beautifully sad.
Before talking about her artwork it is best to know where Kollwitz’s fascination with death originated. The infant mortality rate was much higher back then so it was not uncommon for women to give birth to five or six kids and only three of them live past the age of three. Kollwitz’s mother was no exception. Mrs. Schmidt gave birth to five children and only three survived. Kollwitz distinctly remembers her younger brother, Benjamin’s, death and its impact on her mother. The death of her baby brother caused a distance between her and her mother. Death was always walking beside her in her thoughts from then on.
Throughout all of her artwork there is sprinkled a mother, child, and death. Estella Lauter and Kominque Rozenberge discuss in their work The Transformation of the Mother in the Work of Kathe Kollwitz the different facial and body expression the mothers in Kollwitz work portray. This was increasingly interesting because it...
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... scary but beautiful at the same time. It is human nature to wonder what death is like. She gives death a face so to speak.
Works Cited
Käthe Kollwitz on Sacrifice, Mourning, and Reparation: An Essay in Psychoaesthetics
Angela Moorjani MLN , Vol. 101, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1986), pp. 1110-1134 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Lauter, Estella, and Dominique Rozenberg. "The Transformation Of The Mother In The
Work Of Käthe Kollwitz." Anima 5.2 (1979): 83-98. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials. Web. 4 Nov. 2011.
R Schulte “Kathe Kollwitz's Sacrifice” Hist Workshop J (SPRING) 1996(41): 193-221
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Yates, Wilson. "Käthe Kollwitz And The Question Of Death." Visual theology. 207-224.
Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Pr, 2009. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials. Web. 4 Nov. 2011.
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.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
Frida Kahlo is known for the most influential Latin American female artist. She is also known as a rebellious feminist. Kahlo was inspired to paint after her near-death bus incident when she was 17. After this horrendous incident that scarred her for life, she went under 35 different operations. These operations caused her extreme pain and she was no longer able to have kids. Kahlo’s art includes self portraits of her emotions, pain, and representations of her life. Frida Kahlo was an original individual, not only in her artwork but also in her
The relationship between life and death is explored in Woolf’s piece, “The Death of a Moth.” Woolf’s own epiphany is presented in her piece; she invites her reader, through her stylistic devices, to experience the way in which she realized what the meaning of life and death meant to her. Woolf’s techniques allow her audience to further their own understanding of death and encourages them consider their own existence.
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,
Lawall, Sarah,et al. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2nd ed. Volume A (slipcased). Norton, 2001. W.W. Norton and Company Inc. New York, NY.
Wisse, Ruth R. "Sutzkever, Avrom." YIVO. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, n.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.
American Literature. 6th Edition. Vol. A. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 2003. 783-791
Overcoming the grief that is felt after losing a loved one is a physically and mentally agonizing task. According to Dr. Christina Hibbert, a clinical psychologist who graduated from the California School of Professional Psychology, three main stages of grief include anger, depression and acceptance. Each one of these emotions can be seen in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and The Descendants (2011, Payne) as the artists explore the effects of grief and the different emotional responses that one can have due to the loss of a loved one. Additionally, in Ismail Kadare’s Broken April, the Berisha family feels the sufferance that is associated with unexpected death, as well as the various temperamental reactions that one will have after losing a loved one. Each of these works of art represent a powerful example of the stages that one will go through after feeling the intense sorrow that is connected with death, as well as the unavoidable effects of grief.
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
As a young boy, Frederich suffered a lot more than an average child although he was brilliant. He had a very sad and lonely childhood, because of the hardships he experienced. Many of which inspired him to his later writings. At a tender age of seven, Neitzche’s father, a pastor, passed away. After being sick for several year with painful dizzy spells, he died. This event both traumatized and stimulated the young Neitzche. He became obsessed with death and its related theories; such as: suffering, disintegration of the brain, death, burial, and graves.
When first approaching this work, one feels immediately attracted to its sense of wonder and awe. The bright colors used in the sun draws a viewer in, but the astonishment, fascination, and emotion depicted in the expression on the young woman keeps them intrigued in the painting. It reaches out to those who have worked hard in their life and who look forward to a better future. Even a small event such as a song of a lark gives them hope that there will be a better tomorrow, a thought that can be seen though the countenance by this girl. Although just a collection of oils on a canvas, she is someone who reaches out to people and inspires them to appreciate the small things that, even if only for a short moment, can make the road ahead seem brighter.
Literature of the Western World, Volume 2. 4th edition by Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1997.
Poets such as Bryant have forever been trying to write their thoughts and feelings down on paper. They write their words like a painter lays their brush to a canvas. They express ideas that not only exemplify the beauty of life and nature, but also the darkest side of one’s life; death. This notion of death is what most people see as a sad ending to a life filled with beauty, though William Cullen Bryant does not see death in that way. In his poem “Thanatopsis” he offers an optimistic outlook on death. He views it as nothing more than the moment you become one with nature and venture through its beauty for all eternity. It is truly a work of art. This is shown by the use of his effective writing skills he uses skills such as, alliteration, similes and personification that make the poem come alive, just as a painter strives to make his art come alive. Also, this poem is art due to the deep thinking required to grasp its concept of death, you cannot read it just once you must read in between the lines and analyze what the poet is saying.
Updike, John. “A&P.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. Eds. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2010. 409-414. Print.