The World of Art Through Collidescope Eyes: Georgia O’ Keeffe and Kathë Kollwitz

One would think that the majority of artist who are women have been less successful than men, or possibly that most well known artists are men. With these two outstanding women and artist that is not the case. Georgia O’Keeffe and Kathe Kollwitz are two very strong and talented painters and drawers who have had a lasting impression on the art world today. Georgia O’Keeffe was known for her paintings of animal skulls, bones, flowers, and beautiful skies. Whereas Kathe Kollwitz was best known for her intense drawings, sketches, and etchings.
Georgia O’Keeffe and Kathe Kollwitz’s paintings differ on the way they paint, and the styles that they use. O’Keeffe tends to use bright, colorful, and vibrant watercolors, whereas Kollwitz tends to do black and white sketches and paintings using the basic dull browns, grays blacks and ivory colors.
Georgia O’Keeffe, the American artist from Wisconsin, was inspired to paint and draw her famous animal skulls and flowers by the geography and scenery of both Texas, and New Mexico where she lived and taught drawing classes. What others might think to be a negative symbol, O’Keeffe found beauty in. She thought that the skulls that she painted were just stunning, and were symbols of eternal life after death whereas most people would simply result to death.
Kathe Kollwitz, the artist from Germany, was inspired by the struggles and suffering of those around her. She liked to capture the emotion and distress of her subjects, which were usually people of poverty, orphaned children, death of illness, and struggling mothers. Kollwitz was not only a witness to those around her, but suffered the loss of a son and grandson to both world wars. To further accentuate the despair of the subjects in her sketches she used charcoal and white paper for a gritty look and feel to each of her pieces.
These women artists successfully capture different aspects of death, and know exactly how to send a message to the viewer of the beauty in death and the agony of death. Both styles have the power to captivate the reader through the intense emotion that is apparent throughout the many artworks of O’Keeffe and Kollwitz.