Käthe Kollwitz

On October 11, 1916, Kollwitz wrote in her journal in anguish about her dead son Peter’s readiness to volunteer for war:

Are the young really without judgment? Do they always rush into it as soon as they are called? Without looking closer? Do they rush into war because they want to, because it is in their blood so that they accept without examination whatever reasons for fighting are given to them? Do the young want war? Would they be old before their time if they no longer wanted it? This frightful insanity-the youth of Europe hurling themselves at one another.

In this composition, the willing young men are led by Death, who beats his battle drum. The unifying rainbow at the top, usually a symbol of hope, does little to dispel the dissonance achieved by the ambiguous facial expressions and jagged cuts at the composition’s bottom.