Four Men in a Pub

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Primarily a printmaker, Käthe Kollwitz’s work focused on the working class and the poor. This etching shows four men in a darkly lit pub engaging in communal camaraderie. This piece has been related to Conspiracy, a later print in Kollwitz’s series The Weaver’s Revolt. This scene lacks the dark mood and fraught facial expressions of that print. Even though Four Men in a Pub takes place in a dimly lit room, the pub evokes a feeling of communal well-being and the men appear to be enjoying each other’s company after a long day’s work. Their relaxed postures suggest unwinding rather than conspiring, as they listen intently to each other. This print is a restrike, the plates were used to create the piece by someone other than the artist.

The exhibited piece Four Men in a Pub, is a prime example of the working class and their communal pastimes. The men pictured are sitting in a darkly lit room enjoying each other’s company and whatever it is that the pub might be serving that day. It is likely that this activity took place after a long work day allowing for rest and relaxation as is very important to the wellbeing of the people. It has been surmised by some art historians that the piece might be part of a series that Kollwitz’s worked on called the Weaver’s Revolt which was inspired by a play called The Weavers by Gerhart Hauptmann dramatizing the oppressive treatment of working class weavers from Silesia. Four Men in a Pub has a similar style to a piece within the series called Conspiracy. This artwork also depicts a few men sitting around a table, but the room is not as dim allowing the viewer to see the suspicious faces and tense clenched fists that constitute the possibility of conspiracy and dissent within the working class people.

The rest of the pieces in the Weaver’s revolt series show Käthe Kollwitz’s concerns for the wellbeing of the working class people. She depicts them for all of the suffering they endure to showcase why revolt was the only option they had in an attempt to better their lives, in hopes of benefiting their wellbeing and community. The first piece in the series, Need, depicts a woman bent over her ailing child in a room for which the living conditions are like that of squalor, portraying the life of famine and misery that the weavers were enduring. While Need shows the sickness of the child, the second piece, Death, describes death as it comes to take the mother who is to die of hunger. The third piece in the series is Conspiracy which I have already discussed with the men sitting around the table plotting revolt.

In the last set of images from the series, have an obvious difference in medium compared to the first three, that is because the first three folios in the series were lithographs while the last three were only completed as etchings. While work, The March of the Weavers is meant to illustrate the people’s conviction in the revolt they are about to insight on their employers, one can still see the saddened expressions of a people whose wellbeing has been ravaged by the upper class. The next piece called Storming the Gate is much like the last image, but it demonstrates the violence that the weavers are willing to commit in order to better their lives. And lastly, the artwork titled The End, depicts the tragic end to the weaver’s revolt when soldiers crush their rebellion leaving the women to mourn the men that were killed. While this series did not have a happy ending, it indicates the lengths at which the oppressed working class was willing to go for the betterment of their wellbeing.

Bringing the conversation back to Kollwitz’s Four Men in Pub, this piece does not hold the same sort of ambience that could be associated with such a revolt. The relaxed postures are drastically different from the clustered figures and clenched fists of Conspiracy, suggesting this to be a peaceful atmosphere with much needed restful camaraderie that would be affiliated with the communal well being of the working class men depicted. Unlike the weaver’s revolt, Four Men in a Pub showcases the positive side of working class wellbeing: the way they come together as a tight knit community to enjoy each other's companionship after what could be assumed to be a day of difficult labor.

Isabella Chalfant ‘22

For more information about Käthe Kollwitz's Weaver's Revolt visit:

https://www.kollwitz.de/en/cycle-weavers-revolt-overview

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