Aus Vielen Wunden Blutest Du, Oh Volk (From Many Wounds You Bleed, Oh Nation)
Käthe Kollwitz, German, 1867 - 1945
1896; published about 1931
Etching and aquatint on wove paper
Sheet: 11 3/4 × 17 3/4 in. (29.8 × 45.1 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Guernsey Center Moore 1904 Memorial Fund
PR.963.119
Publisher
A. von der Becke, Berlin, Germany
Geography
Place Made: Germany, Europe
Period
19th century
Object Name
Research Area
Not on view
Inscriptions
Embossed, lower right: AVD. BECKE/Kunstverlag/BERLIN-HALENSEE
Label
This enigmatic print was initially intended as the final image in Kollwitz’s series responding to the German Weavers’ Revolt (1891–1892), which protested ongoing famine and inequality. However, this work became a standalone print. Christ is outstretched on a table, identifiable by his crown of thorns and the wound in his side. A figure with a sword, perhaps Justice or Vengeance, leans over him to touch the gash at his ribs. Two women are bound and naked at either side, seemingly allegorical figures of suffering. The inscription above, also the title of the work, suggests that Kollwitz reuses the familiar Christian image to speak to more widespread national suffering in the late nineteenth century and the hope for a more just future.
From the 2023 exhibition Recording War: Images of Violence 1500 – 1900, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Associate Curator of Academic Programming
Course History
GERM 10.06, A Visual History of Germany, Heidi Denzel, Winter 2022
GERM 7.07, Babylon Berlin, Veronika Fuechtner, Spring 2022
GERM 3.01, Introdoctory German (cont.), Heidi Denzel, Fall 2022
Exhibition History
Recording War: Images of Violence, 1500-1900, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 20-August 20, 2023.
Provenance
Ferdinand Roten Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland; sold to present collection, 1963.
Catalogue Raisonne
A. Klipstein, Kaethe Kollwitz: Verzeichnis des Graphischen Werkes, Bern, 1955, no. 29.
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