Heavy Value: The Art of Käthe Kollwitz

 

It's been a little while since I spent some time looking at the art of Käthe Kollwitz. I'm a little older and wiser now and the weight of the world has become a more real thing since my carefree early days at art school. I'm sharing these drawings because I forgot how well they connect with how we use value in our class. Now these are value shapes! And the second reason that I'm sharing them is for how powerfully they convey emotion, often using her self-portrait as a vehicle for this expression. 

This transfer lithograph was created shortly after the death of her son Peter, who fell as a volunteer as early as October 1914 in West Flanders. It shows Käthe Kollwitz with heavy eyelids, swollen from weeping, looking blankly into the mirror.

In her diary she summed up the impact of this blow of fate in 1917:

"That point in time marked the beginning of old age, my walking towards my grave. That was a rupture. A bending down so low that I will never be able to stand straight." - Käthe Kollwitz, Diaries, 12 October 1917

More here: https://www.kollwitz.de/