The Volunteers

Today is Armistice Day, which marks the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, at 5:45 am—the informal end of the First World War. This war, contemporaneously known as the Great War or "the war to end all wars," led to the mobilization of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history, and also one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated 8.5 million combatant deaths and 13 million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war.

The German artist Käthe Kollwitz lost her son in that war. In 1919, she began work on the woodcut series Krieg (War), her response to the tragedies endured during what she called those "unspeakably difficult years" of World War I and its aftermath. The portfolio's seven woodcuts focus on the sorrows of those left behind—mothers, widows, and children. 

Only one print, The Volunteers, shows the combatants. In it, Kollwitz's younger son, Peter, takes his place next to Death, who leads the troops in an ecstatic procession to war. Peter was killed in action just two months after joining the army as a volunteer. Kollwitz wanted these works to be widely viewed. By eliminating references to a specific time or place, she created universally legible indictments of the real sacrifices demanded in exchange for abstract concepts of honor and glory. 

P.S. Here you can read the story of five artists who fought during the World War I!

P.P.S. Do you know how Claude Monet, although he was very old when the Great War finished, honored the soldiers of WWI? Check it out in our Mega Impressionism Online Course here.