“The artist is usually a child of his times, especially if his formative years fell in the period of early socialism.”

Reply to questionnaire sent to prominent artists, (1942/1943), quoted in Käthe Kollwitz (1971) by Otto Nagel, translated by Stella Humphries.
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Context: The artist is usually a child of his times, especially if his formative years fell in the period of early socialism. My formative years coincided with that period, and I was totally caught up in the socialist movement. At that time, the idea of a conscious commitment to serve the proletariat was the farthest thing from my mind. But what use to me were principles of beauty like those of the Greeks, for example, principles that I could not feel as my own and identify with? The simple fact of the matter was that I found the proletariat beautiful.

Original

Der Künstler ist meist ein Kind seiner Zeit, besonders, wenn seine eigene Entwicklungsperiode in die Zeit des frühen Sozialismus fällt.

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Context: Der Künstler ist meist ein Kind seiner Zeit, besonders, wenn seine eigene Entwicklungsperiode in die Zeit des frühen Sozialismus fällt. Meine Entwicklungszeit fiel in die Zeit des frühen Sozialismus. Dieser ergriff mich gänzlich. Von einer bewußten Arbeit im Dienste des Proletariats war damals für mich keine Rede. Was kümmerten mich aber Schönheitsgesetze, wie zum Beispiel die der Griechen, die nicht meine eigenen waren, von mir empfunden und nachgefühlt? Das Proletariat war für mich eben Schön.

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Käthe Kollwitz photo
Käthe Kollwitz 14
German artist 1867–1945

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