men in the front have individual facial features,while the increasingly smaller
and faceless heads in the background suggest alarge group merging into one
unifiedbody. On the left,two policemen watch themarchers with suspicion.
The caption reads:“Masses out on the streets! [...]Watchwordfor Cologne:To
the KPDrally”(see figure 11.1).⁷
In an article published in the same newspaperacouple of days later,Seiwert
explainedhis artistic choices,aware that communist readers mightrespond neg-
atively to his use of abstraction.“Iwas not interestedinreproducingafleeting
reality but to createasymbol (Sinnbild)ofwhat todayishappeningall over
the world,”he explained:
Everywhereproletarians will gather around the red flag,and everywherethe representa-
tivesoflaw and order will stand around waitingtosee whether they can do something
about it.Fleetingreality doesn’treallymatter,the small pockmark and the“correct”
nose in the face of the“correctly”drawndemonstratingworker.Instead, whatmatters is
to conveyanimageofthe proletariat in its incalculablemultitude.⁸Arecurrentmotif since the earlyworkers’movement,demonstrations,rallies,
andmarches have allowed artists to support struggles for democratic freedoms
and civil rights, commemorate violent confrontationsduring strikes and upris-
ings, and establish visual conventions for decidedlymodernmise-en-scènes of
resistanceand revolution. Eugène Delacroix in the famousLiberty Leading the
People(1830) modeled how to draw on realist and allegorical elements in cele-
brating the continuities between theFrench Revolution and theJuly Revolution.
Usingasimilar frontal composition, GiuseppePellizza daVolpedo’smonumental
oil paintingTheFourth Estate(1901) combinedrealist and impressionist techni-
ques in transformingalarge group of Piedmontese rural laborers into the har-
binger of the modern workingclass.⁹InDieInternationale(1928–1930,TheInter-
nationale), Otto Griebel (1895– 1972 )restagedthe same moment of confrontation
withamoreunifiedgroup of industrial workers in thehyperrealist style of New
SozialistischeRepublik,30April 1925.Gerd Arntz createdavery similar imageinsupport of the
AAUE’sprogram of council communism for the title page ofDie proletarischeRevolution2.23
(1927).
FranzWilhelm Seiwert,“UnserMaibild,”Sozialistische Republik103,4May1925. Reprinted in
Uli Bohnen and DirkBackes, eds.,Der Schritt, der einmal getan wurde, wirdnichtzurückgenom-
men. FranzW. Seiwert. Schriften(Berlin:Karin Kramer,1978), 47.Other paintings of demonstra-
tions from theWeimar period include HansBaluschek’sProletarier/Streik(1920)and Curt Quer-
ner’sDemonstration(1930).
The fourth estatereferstoworking class that,inmodern class society,challengesthe three
estates in feudal societies,the aristocracy,clergy,and peasantry.
Franz Wilhelm Seiwert’sCriticalEmpathy 209