Assignment 8-Georgia O’keeffe and Kathe Kollwitz

Assignment 8-Georgia O’keeffe and Kathe Kollwitz

            The first and most striking difference between the work of Georgia O’keeffe and Kathe Kollwitz is the use of color.  Kathe Kollwitz uses black and grey for all of her works.  Georgia O’keeffe is the exact opposite of Kathe Kollwitz.  She uses very vibrant colors in her work that really light up the canvases.  Georgia O’keeffe gained most of her inspiration from the desert.  Some of her best works came from the time that she spent in the desert of Santa Fe New Mexico.  This piece, Ram’s Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills.

Ram's Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills, oil, 1935, Georgia O'keeffe

You can see the details and the beautiful colors in this painting.  She put a lot of emotion into this painting.  The colors next to each other make this painting incredibly vivid.

            Kathe Kollwitz had a very depressing life.  She had lost a son to the war and she believed that art should reflect the conditions of the time.  Living in what was then East Prussia, there is no question as to why her paintings are so grim.  It was a rough place to grow up and live in, and that is reflected in her works.  This one is called Woman with Dead Child, and it really shows her sadness.

Woman with Dead Child, etching, 1903, Kathe Kollwitz

The contrast between these two pieces is striking.

            Both of these artists drew inspiration from the areas that they were living.  This allowed Georgia O’keeffe to paint many beautiful images, drawing inspiration from the beauty of her surroundings.  She painted the beauty of New York, Hawaii, and New Mexico.  She was able to go outside and sit in isolation and paint all of the beauty around her.  This lead to some really lovely pieces of art, such as the Pineapple Bud and Blue and Green Music.

Pineapple Bud, oil, 1939, Georgia O'keeffe

Blue and Green Music, oil, 1921, Georgia O'keeffe

You can clearly see the influences of where she lived in these pieces.  I think that Blue and Green Music shows the busy life of New York.  It is the color of music of her time.  While it is very busy, it is also very pleasant.  Pineapple Bud is from her time in Hawaii, and it is very representative of the land.  However, the colors are skewed, putting complimentary colors next to each other.  It makes it so vivid and bright. 

            Kathe Kollwitz shows the sadness of where she lived in her painting Survivors, which was painted in a very broken post World War I Germany,

Survivors, graphite, 1923, Kathe Kollwitz

You can also see another example of this in her wood etching In Memoriam Karl Liebknecht, done just a few years before Survivors.

In Memoriam Karl Liebknecht, wood etching, 1920, Kathe Kollwitz

Both artists wove their lives into their work in different ways.  Though very different, the composition of their lives work were created in a very similar manner.