Comparative Analysis
Kathe Kollwitz, Child’s Head in a Mother’s Hands 1900
&
Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother 1936
Throughout the years, I have been challenged on my personal use of drawing and painting in my portraits. It has been argued time and again, since the birth of photography, that if one’s goal is to capture an authentic moment and likeness, then photography ought to be the method of choice. However, by comparing the works of two acclaimed female artists of the last century, we can see that in many instances, a photograph simply cannot represent the reality of the human condition as truthfully as a drawing or painting may. I will be examining Dorothea Lange’s esteemed portrait, Migrant Mother, in contrast to a lesser known work by Kathe Kollwitz entitled, Child’s Head in a Mother’s Hands.
Though existing concurrently with the Federal Arts Project, Lange was hired as a documentary photographer for the Farm Security Administration. The purpose of hiring these photographers was not to stimulate the revival of the arts and culture [as was the case with the Federal Arts Project], but rather, to create documentation of rural life in order to get funding to these areas of great need. Fortuitously for Lange these works were received as much more than simple documentation. The undercurrent of these photographs was meant to incite in viewers the sense that these were industrious Americans of great fortitude, who had simply come upon hard times. Lange’s work clearly accomplishes this goal, albeit in a somewhat scientific manner. Although Lange often engaged in conversation with her subjects, that too was primarily as a means of gathering data for the FSA and was brief and impersonal in nature; this detachment is evident in her works. Likewise, it is indisputable that Lange has taken great care to edit our interpretation of these scenes, but they tend to lack any hint of emotional mediation on Lange’s behalf.
Dorothea Lange’s, Migrant Mother was shot in Nipomo, California in March of 1936, during the throws of the Great Depression. This image has, in fact become so ingrained in our culture that it stands today as the singular iconic symbol of this era. Despite it’s widespread popularity, and unquestionable documentary merit, this piece lacks the ability to incite in the viewer as deep an emotional response as can readily be found in works of her contemporary, Kathe Kollwitz.
There are several formal elements that must be addressed in order to unearth the deficiencies of this piece as a work of art, rather than documentation. Lange took 6 photographs in this series depicting a 32 year old mother living in a tent with her seven children. The photographs were taken in short succession, with Lange moving closer for every shot, eventually editing the frame down to a tight half length portrait. During this session, Lange admittedly, “did not ask her name or her history.” [Phaidon, 36]. This tightened frame allows us only to see only the mother’s face, hand and hints of three of her children. So while we can only see one full portrait, there are three others being alluded to. The woman holds a sleeping infant in her lax left arm, seemingly too fatigued to hold the child up, rather letting him drape across her lap, while two other children flank either shoulder, turning away from the camera only revealing their unkept hair and dirt stained hands. This composition is highly reminiscent of the Madonna and Child, right down to the cherubs floating to either side. Turning our attention to the portrait itself, we observe a swath of thick ebony hair hinting at the mother’s youth, and yet it is framing a face so wrought with fatigue and anguish, that we are forced to consider the circumstances she has endured. Her skin darkened by the sun, she furrows her brow deeply creating a series of ripples emanating up towards her hairline, while creases pour from the corners of her deep set eyes. Her mouth wrenches down at it’s corners, surrounded by well set indentations. The mother’s left hand rests beneath the infant and out of view. The gesture of her pose is such that her spine curls forward beneath the physical and perhaps emotional weight of the children at her shoulders, her elbow coming to rest on her knee, as if supporting not only the weight of her face resting upon it, but the emotional weight of her entire family. The pyramidal composition further emphasizes this sense of gravity. Her hand simultaneously supports her face, and yet pulls the skin of her jawline in a tense grasp, framing her face and drawing the gaze up towards her hauntingly blank eyes which stare past us, but at nothing in particular. By placing her gaze beyond the frame, we would expect the exterior space to be activated, and yet, her eyes focus on nothing, creating an introverted dialogue which we are not privy to. Her hands are thin and deflated of their youth, with veins bulging forth and large protruding knuckles. Her fingernails have been worn short and are framed by a thin outline of dirt, evidence of the hard manual labor involved in her daily life. Our perspective is placed just at, or slightly below eye level, as Lange often did in an effort to imbue the sitter with a sense of strength and dignity. Unfortunately, in this case our extreme closeness to the subject, combined with her complete disengagement, give us the sense that we are voyeurs witnessing the highly personal struggles of a woman not looking for our attention or assistance, but rather looking within. The composition combined with the inward gaze, emit a sense of containment, that try as we might, does not allow us to step into or experience this image on a personal level, which is highly problematic. All of these elements combine to create a piece that is, albeit, emotionally unsettling, highly voyeuristic and disengaging.
Kathe Kollwitz’s, Child’s Head in a Mother’s Hands, is a small graphite drawing on a white woven paper, measuring just 8 3/16” square. Despite it’s petite size, this piece captures every bit the emotion and narrative of Kollwitz’s much larger works. At first glance this may appear to some as a precious moment between mother and child; the child softly sinking into sleep enveloped by the sturdy hands of his mother. Upon closer inspection we are forced to acknowledge the foreboding posture of these hands. These are, in essence, the hands of Lange’s Migrant Mother; the hands of a woman who has tended the earth as well as to her family. Kollwitz renders these hands with great delicacy, as well as a somewhat urgent sense of mark making. The hands are large in proportion to the child’s face, with bulbous, protruding knuckles, and rivers of sinewy veins rippling from wrist to fingertip, taking on a monumental tone. The flesh is lax with age, and yet pulsing with life. Kollwitz’s often modeled hands after those of her own mother and grandfather, stating in her autobiographical letter to her son, “Grandfather’s hands were very beautiful; my mother’s hands took after his. They were large and expressive in shape.” [Kollwitz 29] Although we recognize these as the hands of a mother, they are in no way delicate or effeminate, but rather quite solid. The fingernails, similarly to those of Lange’s Migrant Mother, are shorn close to the finger, alluding to a life of labor, or perhaps to a nervous habit caused by a life of worry. The woman’s left hand cradles the weight of the child’s head, with great care and unwavering strength, while the right hand seems to fall limp. A few gestural strokes of Kollwitz’s graphite, lead us from this torpid form up and over the mother’s slumped and protruding belly, a belly that has just taken a great exhale. Our perspective puts us just below eye level with the child, centering his head at the crux of the mother’s legs, aligned perfectly with the belly and therefor alluding to the womb and maternity. As in Lange’s piece, we see one true portrait, and yet other’s are implied. The portrait in this case, inversely to Lange’s, is that of the child. The mother’s hands, and near pure white belly cradle and enshrine the child’s face creating a halo-like effect. We must also take note of the flurry of franticly drawn lines, emanating out from the child’s shoulders, simultaneously forming the knees of the mother as well as creating the illusion of wings, evoking a sense of angelic innocence about the child. This religious undertone, evidence of Kollwitz’s upbringing in the church under her liberal Protestant pastor father and grandfather. Next, we turn our attention to the child’s face, which fades to a near whisper. Delicately rendered, the child’s head slips to one side, resting it’s entire weight upon his mother’s left hand. The child’s eyes are closed, and brow lax and absent of emotion. Moving down the face, we notice that the child’s lips are softly closed, but the bottom lip pulls taught against a drooping chin, as if his mouth may slip open for a gasp of air at any moment. The framing of this portrait has an air of expansion, as if the image may just keep expanding infinitely from the child's face, whereas Lange’s portrait is fully encased by other forms, thereby disallowing the viewer step into the space created. When we take a step back, and assimilate all of these element, it becomes apparent that this is not in fact a sleeping child, but rather an image of death, and a mother caught in a moment of inexplicable grief. This is, in essence, Kollwitz’s reinterpretation of Madonna and Child through a contemporary lens.
Kollwitz’s, Child’s Head in a Mother’s Hands, was a life drawing, quite likely of her then four year old son Peter; foreboding of Peter’s death in war some years later, and perhaps also the death of her grandson of the same name, by the same means. This study was completed in preparation for a triptych entitled The Downtrodden, depicting the death of Christ at the center, a female figure writhing in grief and pain to the right, and the mother holding the dead child to the left, with her husband slumped in grief offering up a noose to end their suffering. Unfortunately the expansion of this narrative, does not allow the viewer an expanded interpretation of the scene, nor does it allow further room for personal interpretation. Upon completion, Kollwitz felt this piece to be fatally flawed and omitted it from her series, Ein Weberaufstand, [A Weaver’s Rebellion], a historical narrative inspired by Gerhard Hauptmann’s play Die Weber, [The Weavers]. In spite of the ultimate downfalls of the triptych, the efficacy of this particular study is without question. Kollwitz’s lifelong fixation upon death is arguably rooted in her childhood memories of witnessing the passing of a young sibling, followed by her mother’s prolonged grief. Unfortunately, this theme remained prominent in her work, perpetuated by the deaths of several family members, coupled with her severe bouts of depression and the constant fear of war running as an undercurrent in Germany at this time. Much like Lange, Kollwitz once lamented that, “Unsolved problems such as prostitution and unemployment grieved and tormented”[Kollwitz 43] her, and yet these were the things that she felt compelled to address in her work; further evidence of her upbringing in a strong liberal family with a focus on social activism.
These two women were so much alike, and yet so different. Both cared deeply about issues of poverty, strength and motherhood; both were esthetically drawn to the hands and the face as a means of representing the life-force of their subjects and most importantly, both women were dedicated to using their skill set for causes of social justice. Lange’s work, including Migrant Mother, has served as powerful evidence of our societies’ sordid past, and still today, they remain necessary reminders of the fragility of our economy and strength of the human spirit. However, they are just that, evidence. Conversely Kollwitz, was able, time and again, to capture moments of human suffering and strength with sometimes as little as a few strokes of graphite. As with, Child’s Head in a Mother’s Hands, we are able to slip effortlessly within the frame, embodying the mother’s grief, the child’s peace, and the overwhelming tension held in the moment between the mothers hand and the child face. Such works hold more narrative, more pain, more innocence, and more reality than any of Lange’s photographs combined. A strong piece of art should not simply show us the world, but help us to experience it.
Works Cited
Read in their entirety:
Dorothea Lange. London: Phaidon, 2011. Print.
Fisher, Andrea. Let us now Praise Famous Women, Women Photographers for the US Government 1935 to 1944. London: Pandora Press, 1987. Print.
Kollwitz, Kaethe. The Diary and Letters of Kaethe Kollwitz. Ed. Hans Kollwitz. Trans. Richard and Clara Winston. Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1988. Print.
Read in part:
Noun, Louise R. Three Berlin Artists of the Weimar Era: Hannah Hoch, Kathe Kollwitz, Jeanne Mammen. Iowa: Des Moines Art Center, 1994. Print.
Prelinger, Elizabeth. Kathe Kollwitz. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1992. Print.
Zigrosser, Carl. Prints and Drawings of Kathe Kollwitz. New York: Dover Publications, 1951. Print.
