Self Portrait, Kathe Kollwitz (ii)

One of the things I love about this self portrait is the variation between line and tone versus the blank space of the paper, as if when to utilize each is perfectly chosen. But also how each type of mark, in different places within the drawing, can perform entirely different functions. Sometimes the lines are just lines, as they are when they depict wrinkles or where the eye’s lids meet the cavity of the eye or strands of hair, and sometimes lines are asked to suggest movement and speed, which we notice particularly in the hair (but also that Kollwitz’s lines tend to move not only in different directions but at different paces from each other) and sometimes the lines are asked to contain shapes, as they do at the top of the head or at the edges of the face or in the solitary line drawn over a blank stretch of paper that depicts her neck. Looking here, we might also note that we often forget that sometimes lines are even asked to hold light.