Aus Vielen Wunden Blutest Du, Oh Volk (From Many Wounds You Bleed, Oh Nation)

Käthe Kollwitz, German, 1867 - 1945

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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

Print

Research Area

Print

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

Anthropology 3.01, Introduction to Anthropology, Charis Ford Morrison Boke 1, Summer 2023

Studio Art 27.01/28.01/74.01, Printmaking I/II/III, Josh Dannin, Summer 2024

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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