Portfolio Archives: Room 4

83

Käthe Kollwitz
Soldiers’ Wives Waving Farewell
1937/38

Bronze

Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum Berlin

A comparison with Emil Orlik’s (1870–1932) graphic work “Chor der Ältesten” (Choir of Elders) reveals similarities with Käthe Kollwitz’s composition of the sculpture. The artist recapitulates an experience from the First World War in which women and children wave goodbye to a departing train carrying soldiers, among whom are their husbands and fathers who have been called up for military service.
Viewers take the place of the soldiers and feel the pain of parting and the fear of the families left behind.

82

Käthe Kollwitz
Tower of Mothers
1937/38

Bronze

Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum Berlin

Even when she created the woodcut The Mothers for her series War, the artist had the idea of also designing the composition as a three-dimensional sculpture. When the signs of another war began to multiply in 1937/38, she translated the image idea into sculpture.
Once again, she arranged the group of mothers with a leading woman in such a way that they confront us – similar to the chorus and the people accusing King Oedipus. We, the viewers, are thus placed in the position of the rulers, who have the power either to attack the children under the protection of their mothers or, on the contrary, to take their side and prevent war.

81

Käthe Kollwitz
The Survivors
1923

Crayon and brush lithography and drypoint

Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum Berlin

What Kollwitz’s “mothers” silently convey to us as viewers in front of the picture is expressed as a demand on the poster. In view of the horrors that even the survivors of a war have to endure, there can only be one motto: War on war!
Kollwitz addresses this demand to the audience, to whom she assigns the power to act—much like the people standing before Oedipus and demanding that he put an end to their misery.

80

Käthe Kollwitz
The People
Sheet 7 from the series War
1921/22

Woodcut

Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum Berlin

79

Käthe Kollwitz
The Mothers
Sheet 6 from the series War
1922

Woodcut

Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum Berlin

78

Käthe Kollwitz
Blind People
1922/23

Charcoal

Käthe Kollwitz Museum Cologne

In the production of Oedipus Rex, Kollwitz was particularly impressed by the choreography of the masses of people surging in violent emotional turmoil. She wrote in her diary:
“The people, after hearing of Jocasta’s death, are thrown back and forth at the palace like roaring surf. The maelstrom.” Käthe Kollwitz’s depictions of the people suffering under the war seem to have been inspired by these visual impressions.

77

Käthe Kollwitz
The People
1923

Pencil

Käthe Kollwitz Museum Cologne

Käthe Kollwitz’s depiction of the suffering people during the war seems to be influenced by her viewing experience of the 1910 production of “Oedipus Rex.” After the performance, the artist described her impressions in her diary using vivid imagery. Years after her theater experience, she processed the despair of the war-torn people in her artwork.

On “Everyman”

After attending a performance of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s (1874–1929) mystery play “Jedermann” (Everyman), which was staged at the Schumann Circus, Käthe Kollwitz wrote to her son Hans in January 1912:

“In the evening we went to see Jedermann. […] I thought it was wonderful, and Moissi in particular was enchantingly charming and spirited. […] This role seems to have been made for him. He plays Hamlet, but here he is the spoiled, beautiful, charmingly weak young man who finds dying so terribly difficult. How he finally understands what dying means and that none of his earthly pleasures remain, how he takes off his thick gold chain and throws it far away, his rings far away, with the expression of a spoiled, dear boy who feels that he is being treated very unfairly and is about to cry. It was all wonderful, absolutely wonderful. And in this naive spectacle, which operates with the Grim Reaper, angels, and devils as if, God knows, we weren’t living in the 20th century, one becomes—at least I do—so completely gripped by the horror of inexorable death.”

Großes Schauspielhaus

After spectacular guest performances at Circus Schumann in 1910 and 1911 with the plays “Oedipus Rex,” “Oresteia,” and “Jedermann,” Max Reinhardt attempted to establish this form of theater, in which the audience surrounds a circular stage, in Berlin.
Reinhardt took over the circus building and had it redesigned by architect Hans Poelzig into the Großes Schauspielhaus (Grand Theater). The expressionist-style renovation created the most modern theater in Europe at the time, with 3,200 seats and innovative technology. The impressive renovation was inaugurated with a revival of “The Oresteia.” To ensure financial success, the building became a revue theater in the 1920s, shaping the decade.

76

Hans Poelzig (Design)
Schumann Circus/Großes Schauspielhaus Berlin
Architectural model 1990

Plastic, veneered wood, cardboard, wire, lamps

Berlin City Museum Foundation

Max Reinhardt (1873–1943) had two plays staged at the Schumann Circus with spectacular success thanks to his innovative concept of mass staging: Sophocles’ tragedy “Oedipus Rex” in 1910 and the world premiere of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s (1874–1929) mystery play “Jedermann” in 1911.
While another ancient play, Aeschylus’ “Oresteia,” was also running at the circus in 1911 to great acclaim, Reinhardt met the architect Hans Poelzig (1869–1936). Together with him, he developed the idea of converting this venue into the Großes Schauspielhaus (Grand Theater). The renovation was opened to great acclaim in 1919 with Aeschylus’ “Oresteia.” Käthe Kollwitz probably also attended the inauguration.