About the Work
Kollwitz developed the immediacy of her compositions in several stages: by way of detail studies from nature, composition designs, but also prints she revised by hand. She sometimes etched an entire printing plate only to reject it and begin anew.
The ‘making-of’ the etching “Sharpening the Scythe” strikingly documents this process. The third image in the “Peasant War”, it represents a key turning point in the cycle’s narrative: the moment in which the protagonist decides to go the way of bloody revolt.
It took Kollwitz nearly a year to arrive at the final composition for this work. She began with an allegorical figure: Inspiration whispering the idea of an uprising into the peasant woman’s ear (inv. no. SG 3345, SG 4224, SG 4344). Then the artist gradually reduced this symbolistic composition to its psychological content. In the end all we see is the woman’s face as she pauses in the work of sharpening her scythe, like a close-up in a film. Her squinting eyes mirror her murderous resolve in all its force.
