what,for manyexpressionist artists, constituted the deeplyreligious and in-
tenselyemotional qualities of modernmass mobilizations.¹⁴
Fig..MagnusZeller,Volksredner/Agitator(), oil on
canvas, Los AngelesCountyMuseumofArt (LACMA).Copy-
rightArtists Rights Society (ARS), NewYork/VGBild-
Kunst Bonn.
Fig..KätheKollwitz,Der
Agitationsredner/The Agitator
(), lithograph, Käthe-Koll-
witzMuseumBerlin.Copyright
Artists Rights Society
(ARS), NewYork/VGBild-Kunst
Bonn.Takingavery different approach,KätheKollwitz (1867–1945), in the litho-
graphDer Agitationsredner(1926,The Agitator), focused on the distance between
speaker andaudience in inviting empathyfor the workers and their plight (see
figure 13.4).¹⁵Her composition focuses onahaggardman with sunken face
whoseraised shoulders and clenched fists suggest anguish and defeat.He
stands timidlyinfront ofasmall group of(bourgeois) men identifiedonly
through their hats–evidence of the difficulty of real dialogue across the class
divide. The isolated speaker figure displays the marks of abjection in the pro-
foundlyhumanist ways that characterizedKollwitz’sidentification with the pow-
erless and oppressed throughout her career.And because of his“unmanly”pos-
ture,Kollwitz’sagitator by the mid-1920sappearedto manycommunist workers
and activists asapitiable character from the naturalist imagination,avictim and
The terms refertothe title of the exhibition catalogueMagnus Zeller,Entrückung undAufruhr,
ed. Dominik Bartmann (Berlin: StiftungStadtmuseum,2002).
Anotherversion ofAgitationsredner(charcoal on paper) stagesamoremilitant scene that
includes (cap-wearing)workersraisingtheir fists.
246 Chapter 13