Arbie's Unoriginally Titled Book Blog
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Drawings and Prints, Kollwitz
A compact Intro with a Kollwitz biography/evaluation preceeds the giant reproductions of the prints and drawings. (Her sculpture is not represented in this book.) The scale of the reproductions is really advantageous and, being monochrome prints and drawings, little is lost in photography and re-printing, compared to art forms where colour and texture are crucial.
Kollwitz seems to have had two main strands to her work - social justice and personal tragedy. The former was expressed by themes of workers' rights, poverty, ill-health and powerlessness and by pacifism. She didn't subscribe to any particular political movement or party, however and the link between the social justice works and the individual tragedies is simply basic human compassion. Kollwitz evidently had this in abundance. There is also a clear connection between her pacifism and the theme of individuals meeting Death (personified) with diverse reactions.
Kollwitz had enormous talent for expressing emotion through depiction of bodily posture and facial expression and this is what gives her work its power. I'm glad to have discovered her museum on my trip to Berlin last year.
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