While I drew, and wept along with the terrified children I was drawing, I really felt the burden I am bearing. I felt that I have no right to withdraw from the responsibility of being an advocate.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the deep emotional connection of an artist to the subjects they depict, especially in times of suffering.
Kathe Kollwitz reflects on her experience as an artist drawing distressed children, conveying her sense of responsibility to advocate for those unable to voice their pain. Through her art, she not only captures their suffering but also acknowledges her personal burden in being a voice for the voiceless, thus eliminating any notion of withdrawing from this duty.
In practice
During a speech about the impact of art in social justice, I quoted Kathe Kollwitz to highlight the responsibility of artists.
There must be understanding between the artist and the people. In the best ages of art that has always been the case. Genius can probably run on ahead and seek out new ways. But the good artists who follow after genius — and I count myself among these — have to restore the lost connection once more.
It is my duty to voice the sufferings of humankind, the never-ending sufferings heaped mountain high. This is my task, but it is not an easy one to fulfill.
I am never going to write for the sake of writing.
I needed my life as a springboard for my fiction. I have to have something solid under my feet when I write. I'm not a fantasist. I bounce up and down on the diving board, and I go into the water of fiction. But I've got to begin in life so I can pump life into it throughout.
What is it precisely, that feeling of 'returning' from a poem? Something is lighter, softer, larger - then it fades, but never completely.
Literature could be said to be a sort of disciplined technique for arousing certain emotions.
Dont call me a rapper, I’m an artist. Update your minds. I ‘INCORPORATE’ hip hop elements because I am part MC, but I am all things musical. All things melodically beautiful.
The photographer's problem is to see clearly the limitations and at the same time the potential qualities of his medium, for it is precisely here that honesty no less than intensity of vision is the pre-requisite of a living expression. The fullest realization of this is accomplished without tricks of process or manipulation, through the use of straight photographic methods.
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