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Arming in a Vault, sheet 4 of the cycle »Peasants’ War«, 1906

Käthe Kollwitz, Arming in a Vault, sheet 4 of the cycle »Peasants War«, 1906, bicolour etching with line etching, drypoint, aquatint and soft ground with imprint of Ziegler's transfer paper, 497 x 327 mm, Kn 96 VI, Kollwitz Museum Köln, Inv. Nr. 70300/23008.
Käthe Kollwitz, Arming in a Vault, sheet 4 of the cycle »Peasants War«, 1906, bicolour etching with line etching, drypoint, aquatint and soft ground with imprint of Ziegler's transfer paper, 497 x 327 mm, Kn 96 VI, Kollwitz Museum Köln, Inv. Nr. 70300/23008.

Sheet 4 in the series shows the concrete preparations for the revolt.

Kollwitz illustrated the turning point in the course of the events – from inertia in an inhuman situation to the activities in preparation for the struggle for a life in dignity. This is particularly manifest in the motif of the spiral staircase on which the armed peasants throng and rush outside. The image immediately suggests a link between the word ›revolution‹ in its figurative sense and its literal meaning.

The artist had already developed this idea in the first preparatory stage in winter 1901/1902. The final version, in which the diagonal line of the armed peasants storming through the image is mirror-inverted, gives additional momentum to the upward movement as the observer ›reads‹ the scene from left to right.

Studies, preparatory drawings, proofs

Käthe Kollwitz, Arming in a Vault, c 1906, chalk on thick, textured, light-brown paper, 457 x 311 mm, NT (215a), Kollwitz Museum Köln, Inv. Nr. 70200/00007.
Käthe Kollwitz, Arming in a Vault, c 1906, chalk on thick, textured, light-brown paper, 457 x 311 mm, NT (215a), Kollwitz Museum Köln, Inv. Nr. 70200/00007.
Käthe Kollwitz, Arming in a Vault, c 1906, charcoal, blotted, and yellow chalk on dark, grey-green Ingres paper, 574 x 445 mm, NT 216, Kollwitz Museum Köln, Inv. Nr. 70200/91021.
Käthe Kollwitz, Arming in a Vault, c 1906, charcoal, blotted, and yellow chalk on dark, grey-green Ingres paper, 574 x 445 mm, NT 216, Kollwitz Museum Köln, Inv. Nr. 70200/91021.
Käthe Kollwitz, Arming in a Vault, first proof of sheet 4 of the cycle »Peasants’ War«, 1906, bicolour etching, line etching, drypoint, aquatint and soft ground with imprint of Ziegler's transfer paper, edited by hand in black ink and Titanium white, 497 x 327 mm, Kn 96 I, Kollwitz Museum Köln, Inv. Nr. 70300/16001.
Käthe Kollwitz, Arming in a Vault, first proof of sheet 4 of the cycle »Peasants’ War«, 1906, bicolour etching, line etching, drypoint, aquatint and soft ground with imprint of Ziegler's transfer paper, edited by hand in black ink and Titanium white, 497 x 327 mm, Kn 96 I, Kollwitz Museum Köln, Inv. Nr. 70300/16001.