Kathe Kollwitz

      Losing her son during the dawn of World War I, Kathe Kollwitz was crestfallen, alone, and wrought with anger. And this shows in her physical manifestations of her feelings: her artwork.
      With creations including her varied self portraits, and other works including young children and their parents, Kollwitz portrayed what war does to families. Motifs occurring in her self portraits are the common effects of loss of a child in the physical sense: emotionless eyes, wrinkles, dark circles, and a general feeling of desolation.
      The names of her works include The Widow I, The Widow II, The Sacrifice, War, Death Woman and Child. There is an absence of happiness, or even anything brighter than depression in the majority of her works. One of the only works depicting happiness is Mother with a Child in Her Arms, located on this website http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A3201&page_number=7&template_id=1&sort_order=1.
     Pacifism is an ideal which should be greatly respected. In times of destruction and murder, nonviolence and love is scarce, even dangerous at times. To oppose the general consensus and create a movement towards peace is an act of those only brave enough to stand up for what is right. Today, it seems that several nations, including the United States, has thrown away the wisdom of revolutionaries such as Kollwitz, and are only concerned with the extinction of others. Yes, there are opponents who pose a great threat to national security, but it is rare and few to find that the nations' leaders consider any other strategy besides putting its citizens in an environment where their lives are at stake, and will forever effect those who love them, as Kathe Kollwitz was affected by her son's death.

Sketch of Kathe Kollwitz: Self Portrait: 1960