ABSTRACT
Paula Modersohn-Becker's Reclining Mother and Child, 1906 (Plate 2) and Käthe Kollwitz's Woman with Dead Child, 1903 (Plate 3) are striking in their representation of motherhood. They depict the maternal state as one of physical absorption and psychic possession in a way that disturbs our preconceptions. Nearly a century after they were produced, the images still have the power to disconcert us by the directness of their vision. Both images stand outside the western cultural tradition of spiritual and dematerialized motherhood symbolized by the immaculate conception and virgin birth. 2 The two female figures remind us, in the solidity of their flesh and the strength of their enfolding arms, that it is through the body of the mother that the unique and irreplaceable intensity of birth is experienced. And yet the two images are very different, for while Modersohn-Becker represents the blissful intimacy of the maternal relationship, Kollwitz shows us the unspeakable pain of maternal loss.
