Kollwitz’s art attempts to depict the impact of war (specifically WWI) on everyday people – their suffering and confusion and sadness. She, as a woman, had the ability to illustrate intimacy, female bodies, and maternal/familial emotions more accurately and believably than most male artists throughout history, past and present. She was a master draftsman of the human figure and in my essay I’m thinking that I would like to explore why she turned from painting toward drawing, etching, and lithography to better depict people’s emotions. Why was she better able to capture the atmosphere of the scene or person in more restrained art forms, characterized by line rather than brushstrokes and black and white rather than color? Perhaps the piece of Kollwitz that I love the most is that she was the voice for her people and illustrated their strife so accurately that we can sense what they were feeling and relate to their lives.