Inspiration
Kathe Kollwitz
Another inspiration of mine was one of the most predominant printmakers of the German Expressionism movement: Kathe Kollwitz. I’d previously viewed prints from her series >>War<<, an extremely moving collection of woodcuts meant to express the pain and grief faced by millions around the world in response to the first world war. It is worth mentioning, however, that I was particularly inspired by one piece from the series entitled The Widow II (Die Witwe II). The woodcut displays a deceased woman laying flat on the ground holding a child in her arms. Based on the lifeless expression of the widow and the two stiff bodies shown, it can be inferred that the woman has taken her own life as well as her baby’s. The story does not include any further context and there is no explanation as to what exactly led up to the image shown, as Kollwitz intended to keep her >>War<< series universal and open to interpretation. The lack of context actually makes the piece more impactful as the dark and emotional imagery speaks for itself and leaves viewers themselves to ponder the story behind it. The objects of the piece are then complimented by precise lines that are thin or medium sized, hatched and at some points cross-hatched, to indicate small details. They are followed by large, contrasting areas of black and white to demonstrate dramatic shading. This work by Kollwitz inspired me to create a block print that tells a dark, but open-ended story with equally immersive linework and visual technique.
Kathe Kollwitz
Another inspiration of mine was one of the most predominant printmakers of the German Expressionism movement: Kathe Kollwitz. I’d previously viewed prints from her series >>War<<, an extremely moving collection of woodcuts meant to express the pain and grief faced by millions around the world in response to the first world war. It is worth mentioning, however, that I was particularly inspired by one piece from the series entitled The Widow II (Die Witwe II). The woodcut displays a deceased woman laying flat on the ground holding a child in her arms. Based on the lifeless expression of the widow and the two stiff bodies shown, it can be inferred that the woman has taken her own life as well as her baby’s. The story does not include any further context and there is no explanation as to what exactly led up to the image shown, as Kollwitz intended to keep her >>War<< series universal and open to interpretation. The lack of context actually makes the piece more impactful as the dark and emotional imagery speaks for itself and leaves viewers themselves to ponder the story behind it. The objects of the piece are then complimented by precise lines that are thin or medium sized, hatched and at some points cross-hatched, to indicate small details. They are followed by large, contrasting areas of black and white to demonstrate dramatic shading. This work by Kollwitz inspired me to create a block print that tells a dark, but open-ended story with equally immersive linework and visual technique.
Planning
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Before I could even delve into my own personal ideas for my block print, I wanted to do some studies of both of the artists I was inspired by in order to get a better grasp of the imagery I was going for and the techniques I would need to incorporate to achieve it.
Here, I did my best to replicate Kollwitz's "The Widow II" and Kirchner's "Portrait of Marie-Luise Binswanger" in a more stripped down format using only graphite pencil and a single sketchbook page. I then took notes on each of the artist's original works, describing their context, mediums used, the key features and principals of design that I wanted to consider. Initially, I started these studies with the intention of narrowing my inspiration down to one artist, hence why my sketchbook pages shown below only describe elements from Kollwitz's work and does not mention Kirchner. I chose to keep Kirchner as one of my inspirations as I believe his fine, yet scratchy linework subconsciously made its way into my block print due to my investigation of his technique.
Before I could even delve into my own personal ideas for my block print, I wanted to do some studies of both of the artists I was inspired by in order to get a better grasp of the imagery I was going for and the techniques I would need to incorporate to achieve it.
Here, I did my best to replicate Kollwitz's "The Widow II" and Kirchner's "Portrait of Marie-Luise Binswanger" in a more stripped down format using only graphite pencil and a single sketchbook page. I then took notes on each of the artist's original works, describing their context, mediums used, the key features and principals of design that I wanted to consider. Initially, I started these studies with the intention of narrowing my inspiration down to one artist, hence why my sketchbook pages shown below only describe elements from Kollwitz's work and does not mention Kirchner. I chose to keep Kirchner as one of my inspirations as I believe his fine, yet scratchy linework subconsciously made its way into my block print due to my investigation of his technique.
While planning for my final product, I knew that I wanted to use a mother and infant child as main subjects, just as shown in Kollwitz's "The Widow II", though I wanted to change the narrative for this piece. Rather than loss, I chose to focus on neglect: a mother's neglect for oneself that in turn neglects the needs of their child. I began experimenting with a figure sketch of a mother kneeling on a flat surface, eventually incorporating the figure of the baby dangling in her arms as well. I then made the decision to keep the woman nude (as I had in the figure drawing) as well as to maintain her kneeling position to emphasize a sense of vulnerability and lack of security. Once I was happy with the basic imagery of the block print, I needed to pan out the defining details of these characters. To do so, I sketched larger versions of the mother's face and the baby's body to play around with their expressions. I wound up creating this "droopy eye" effect on the mother's face by enlarging the eyes, crossing them and slanting them downwards, which I kept as to suggest that she is in a dazed, confused state of being. I also slicked back her hair; I wanted to make it look as though her hair was so greasy that it stuck to her neck, another slight implication of instability. As for the baby, I wanted to convey the distress of the child. I planted a firm, frustrated expression on its face and chose to draw it kicking and flailing as if to escape its mother's arms. Alongside these concept sketches, experimentation in Micron pens with Kollwitz-styled hatching and contrast (in preparation for the final sketch) can be seen.
At the last stage of my planning phase, I created my final sketch to verify what exactly I wanted my piece to look like: the final positioning of the characters, the places I wanted to carve, the details that I wanted, the placement of thick and thin lines, contrast and shading. The influences of Kollwitz's work truly reached their peak here, largely because of the line variation and solid sections of black I was able to achieve using Micron pens and sharpies. I was able to truly emphasize the expressions of both the mother and child that I was initially planning for; I dramatized their features by adding extra linework in various places such as the eyes, mouths, and wrinkles in the skin. I also further established a sense of light and perspective by placing the dark shadow of the mother and child onto a floor that is angled towards the viewer, as well as a black and white wall of a room, where a corner can be seen on the righthand side. After incorporating everything I wanted into the sketch, I reflected on the parts that I was happiest with, brainstormed any further improvements I could make and then annotated them so I could refer to this page while working with the linoleum.
Process
With my final sketch transferred and every area I wanted to carve mapped out, it was now finally time to break out the carving tools. I first started for the mother's face using my finest carving tool with an extremely small tip. I needed to see how much detail I could achieve. I was surprisingly able to carve some exceptionally thin lines, though definitely not as thin as I was able to achieve in my final sketch using the micron pens. Here, I realized I would have to sacrifice some of the detail I'd hoped to include. On the other hand, though, this gave me the opportunity to add some abstraction to the piece. The lines turned out slightly thicker and angular due to the nature of the carving tools, but I chose to embrace this.
After finishing the head and face of the mother, I began to work on the body of the mother as well as the child in her arms. To organize my carving style a little bit, I used the fine carving tool again to outline every part of the mother's body, the baby's body and its face. that I needed to carve out. Then, I switched over to a medium sized "scooping" carving tool and stripped away the insides of every part I'd outlined. I knew from carving the mother's face that some details would be sacrificed, like some of those small wrinkles in the skin and the baby's expression, but this further emphasized the slightly abstract direction the piece was going in. The mother's body in the final sketch did include a lot of shading, though, and I wanted to find a way to ensure that it made the final print. I experimented with thin hatching near the edges of the arms, breasts, and torso, once again using the fine-tipped carving tool. The result was a very scratch effect on the linoleum, which well-demonstrated the shading and resembled the hatching techniques of Kollwitz that I was going for.
To wrap up my carving, the last thing I needed to do was carve away the largest spaces: the shadows on the floor and the stripes on the walls. In order to do this, I used my largest "scooping" carving tool to remove those large black areas quickly and efficiently. I then tidied up the edges and removed any excess linoleum I'd missed to ensure solid contrast in the final block print. I returned to the hatching technique I'd used for the mother's body to create a gradient of shadows on the floor.
Before moving onto the printing stage, I looked carefully at my carved linoleum sheet, looking for anything I'd missed. I referred back to the annotations on my final sketch to ensure I'd incorporated everything I wanted for the print. I cleaned up any remaining edges and removed any out-of-place streaks of linoleum. Once I was completely happy with my carving, I was ready to start the printing process. |
My printing experience went by surprisingly quickly. I knew that printmaking is often a long process of trial and error, and I'd prepared myself to go through dozens of prints before I was happy, but for me personally, this was fortunately not the case. I started out by coating a metal tray with a thin layer of ink using a brayer. I rolled the brayer across the tray until I felt that it had been coated evenly with a sufficient amount of ink before taking it to my linoleum carving. I went over the linoleum using the brayer until every uncarved space was covered in solid black ink, and then carefully placing a sheet of paper on top of it and pressing down and around it with a barren. My first print (pictured on the left) was an indicator that my carving was exactly how I wanted it, but I was using too little ink as many white cracks in the paper were visible. After that I made sure to add an extra dab of ink to my tray before repeating the process. I produced a couple decent, evenly coated prints, though they were quite off-centered as I don't have the steadiest hands, so I continued. Eventually, I produced a print that I was perfectly happy with (pictured in the middle). It was my most-centered print and had what I thought to be a great distribution of ink that truly demonstrated the contrast I was aiming for. However, I wanted to continue experimenting with these prints and I continued to produce a few more using various amounts of ink so that I could have a range of prints to choose from. Though I'm glad that I did some extra printing, it turned out to be a fairly anti-climactic end to my printing process, as most of the prints turned out almost identical to my first few (either too much white showing or off-centered) and then my final couple of prints simply had too much ink (as shown in the print on the right), which transferred from the brayer, to my linoleum, and then onto the paper. I knew in the end that the print that I was initially happy with was my best work, and ultimately chose that one as my final product.
Critique
When I created "What is a mother?" I took inspiration from Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Portrait of Marie-Luise Binswanger and Kathe Kollwitz's The Sacrifice, The Widow I and The Widow II. As I planned my block print, I felt that I leaned much more in the direction of Kollwitz's work than Kirchner's, though when it came to carving, I noticed Kirchner's linework and abstraction starting to show in my work, which has lead me to believe that Kirchner truly did inspire me after all.
One similarity between my work and the work of these two artists would be contrast, as Kollwitz and Kirchner's pieces both have a very clear sense of contrast with a balanced amount of blacks and whites, and I feel that I was able to create a similar sense of contrast to emphasize heavy shadows and bright highlights. Another, for Kirchner specifically, would be abstraction. In my final sketch, there was not a lot of abstraction, though in my carvings and especially in my final piece, I realized I'd incorporated it to a fair degree. Take the lines across the face, for instance, and the lopsidedness of the eyes. Lastly, for Kollwitz specifically, I feel that I used a similar method of conveying emotion and meaning in this block print. Not only do we both use themes of motherhood, but here, I also chose to keep the story just vague enough to be universal. There is clear distress shown in the piece: the mother is in a daze of some sorts and her child is flailing in attempt to escape her arms, and though there is no clear answer as to why this is being depicted, it still leaves viewers to ponder the dynamic between a mother and her child, just as although there is no clear reason why the widows in Kollwitz's War series are so somber, viewers associate them with the horrors of the first world war.
Though there are many similarities between my work and that of these artists, there is also a fair amount of differences as well. One noticeable difference is definitely the scratchy textured lines of my piece, which was not inspired by Kirchner nor Kollwitz, but a personal style choice; I felt it made the print a little chaotic and even more distressed. Another would be the range in thick and thin lines. Though I did intend to include more of a range, as I'd seen from both Kollwitz and Kirchner, my lack of carving experience hindered my abilities, as I only had one fine-tipped carving tool and had never worked with the tool prior to creating my block print. My thinnest lines are likely about twice as thick as the lines of the artists I'd referenced, and I did ultimately have to sacrifice a bit of line variation. And perhaps the biggest difference of all is the concept of my piece. The portrait by Kirchner that inspired me has no known background information or storyline to it, so as far as art historians currently know, it has no further concept outside of being a portrait of a woman with a man standing behind her. As for Kollwitz, her War series contains a collection of prints that each show different devastating effects of war. Her piece that I was most inspired by was The Widow II, which features a deceased widow and child, their lives presumably taken by the widow. As previously mentioned, Kollwitz and I both used motherhood as a theme in our artwork, but that is generally where the similarity ends. I chose to follow a different narrative than Kollwitz in "What is a mother?". It does not focus on war in any way, but more so on child neglect and the manifestation of instability in mothers.
Reflection
Creating "What is a mother?" was a very valuable experience for me. This was my first time ever making a block print, and I got to learn how to use carving tools and work with linoleum and ink when I would likely have otherwise never tried them. Over time, my control over my medium got increasingly better, and with experimentation I was able to determine things like how use of pressure while carving could thicken or deepen my lines, or how different amounts of ink impact the texture of a print. I feel that my block print demonstrates the techniques of my inspirations, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Kathe Kollwitz in a major way. In the end, it seems as though I created a balance of the bold contrast of both artists, the abstraction of Kirchner and the emotion of Kollwitz's, with a bit of my own narrative and carving style added to the mix. I am a little disappointed that I failed to incorporate all of the details of my final sketch into my actual final product, but I can certainly use this as a learning experience for future block prints. I know now that I may need to sacrifice the smaller details if they are too thin to carve. I've also grown to appreciate the different look of my final piece. The thick and angular lines reinforce the influence of Kirchner's artwork and make the piece look bold and more striking. It added to the intimidating nature of the piece that I'd intended all along. All in all, I'm quite happy and satisfied with the way my block print came to be.
Connecting to the ACT
1.) Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
The abstract nature of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Portrait of Marie Luise Binswanger inspired me to use abstract techniques similar to his, such as thick, angular lines and disproportion. Kathe Kollwitz's The Sacrifice, The Widow I and The Widow II (from her series War) inspired me to focus on the smaller details of my blockprint, to give my artwork a universal meaning and dig deeper into the concept of motherhood. Both artists inspired me to work heavily with contrast for this piece.
2.) What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Kirchner's approach for his portrait appears to be nonchalant, with no implied storyline in his portrait. It appears as though he focused more on providing compelling abstract visuals for viewers to look at. Kollwitz, on the other hand, wanted to emulate feelings of grief and loss in her art. She spreads an anti-war message in her War series, which is intended to make viewers reflect on the brutal outcomes of World War I.
3.) What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Making this block print truly instilled in me the fact that there is no short answer to the question of "What is a mother?" My own idea of what a mother should be may differ from the next person's, but no one should feel unsafe in the presence of their mother's or lack there of.
4.) What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The theme is instability and dysfunction in the relationship between a mother and her child, and the complexity of such issues.
5.) What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
No two relationships are the same. The reason why the dynamic between the mother and child has so much variation in art is because every single one has its own characteristics, ups, downs, and functionalities
The abstract nature of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Portrait of Marie Luise Binswanger inspired me to use abstract techniques similar to his, such as thick, angular lines and disproportion. Kathe Kollwitz's The Sacrifice, The Widow I and The Widow II (from her series War) inspired me to focus on the smaller details of my blockprint, to give my artwork a universal meaning and dig deeper into the concept of motherhood. Both artists inspired me to work heavily with contrast for this piece.
2.) What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Kirchner's approach for his portrait appears to be nonchalant, with no implied storyline in his portrait. It appears as though he focused more on providing compelling abstract visuals for viewers to look at. Kollwitz, on the other hand, wanted to emulate feelings of grief and loss in her art. She spreads an anti-war message in her War series, which is intended to make viewers reflect on the brutal outcomes of World War I.
3.) What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Making this block print truly instilled in me the fact that there is no short answer to the question of "What is a mother?" My own idea of what a mother should be may differ from the next person's, but no one should feel unsafe in the presence of their mother's or lack there of.
4.) What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The theme is instability and dysfunction in the relationship between a mother and her child, and the complexity of such issues.
5.) What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
No two relationships are the same. The reason why the dynamic between the mother and child has so much variation in art is because every single one has its own characteristics, ups, downs, and functionalities
MLA Citations
“Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Portrait of Marie-Luise Binswanger ( Portrait Frau Marie-Luise Binswanger ). 1917: Moma.” The Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Modern Art, 2022, https://www.moma.org/collection/works/62415.
“Series ‘War’ - Overview - Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln.” Series "War" - Overview – Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln, Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln, https://www.kollwitz.de/en/series-war-overview.
“Series ‘War’ - Overview - Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln.” Series "War" - Overview – Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln, Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln, https://www.kollwitz.de/en/series-war-overview.