Need, by Kathe Kollwitz was painted in 1893 in response to seeing a play called The Weaver. (Kathe Kollwitz) The Weavers, which dramatized the oppression of the Silesian weavers in Langembielau and their failed revolt in 1842, inspired Kathe Kollwitz to create a series of six pieces on the themes of the play.(Kathe Kollwitz) The three themes were poverty, death, and conspiracy. (Kathe Kollwitz) This series based on The Weavers became her most widely proclaimed paintings.
Stylistically, it was innovative at the time it was painted in 1893. It is drawn with many lines and the picture is not picturesque or perfect. (Impressionism) The painting itself is not in excruciating detail, but that was the style at this time. Impressionism really took off at this time and it was created to show the realities in life, but in a subjective way. So, people in poverty were shown in little or no detail and the beholder could fill in the blanks. In Need, by Kathe Kollwitz, you can barely make out the baby’s face, and the back of the room is so dark that you can hardly tell that it is a room. Thematically, the painting was meant to express the hardships of poverty. You can tell the family is poor because the house is damaged and raggedy, and they are tending over a sick baby, who will most likely not be able to get better because the family does not have enough money to get the baby well.
