War and Peace

It happens every year. Kathe Kollwitz returns to Cambridge. War ravages the land. Someone mentions pathos comparing Kollwitz to Goya. A chorus nods its appreciation of pathos and it is left for some meek, distant voice to observe that Goya, however, remains a formidable criterion.

The comparison may be unfair but is inevitable none the less. Captive soldiers with grim, tormented faces and exhausted bodies suffer abominably in the grip of barbed wire. Death incarnate descends its dark, all-powerful might into the midst of struggling children and takes war's most horrifying toll. Humanitarian aspirations and instincts as epitomized by Kollwitz in the spirit of motherhood suffer and die under the relentless blow of man's inhumanity to man.

All is seen through the eyes of a wounded, truly outraged witness, determined to convey hard facts via uncompromising reportage. War is indeed projected, a product of candid, literary honesty, but having very little to do with aesthetics. If Goya is so far removed, he is so because his masterly statements have everything to do with aesthetics.

The point continually arises that Kollwitz is, after all, an "Expressionist," a wielder of emotions who prefers impulsive, intuitive reactions to intellectualized or classic ones. No answer speaks more eloquently than the suffering "expressionist" figures of Rouault, whose silent anguish mirrors not only torment and martyrdom but that essential dignity of art defined by Malraux as "the voice of silence." The difference, again, is aesthetic, not literary. Kollwitz cries out against war; Rouault affirms the artistry war destroys. One is advocacy and the other is art.

New York born Ralph Rosenborg, whose oils and watercolors accompany Kollwitz's graphic work at the Gropper, pursues art with precisely this aesthetic criterion in mind. A newcomer to the Cambridge scene, Rosenborg's work has never come closer than Provincetown despite some three hundred exhibitions both in this country and abroad. Displayed here, to the delightful if somewhat dubious accompaniment of a console offering Rossini's Barber of Seville at one moment and Brahms' Hungarian Rhapsodies the next, these unpretentious canvases gain much from understatement.

The artist simply distinguishes his untitled works as landscapes, seascapes or floral studies, leaving articulation to his brush and the imagination. Often it is difficult to determine which fit even these broad categories, as Rosenborg's work, neither non-objective nor allegorical, alludes mystically to nature as a vehicle alone. Brilliant bouquets of color, often straight from the tube, alternate with misty formations of warm, mellow light. Seldom is any linear element whatsoever introduced. Rosenborg's variations on a theme of color harmonies are as much the point as his eulogy of nature.

Perhaps his most effective are the smallest studies, exhibited in portfolio. Here, Rosenborg's poetic musings demonstrate their delicate spontaneity to best advantage, distilling a personal technique to its most concise and meaningful point.

Here are two distinct philosophies and two diverse temperaments. Perhaps their only bond is that of intense conviction. But this alone gives the Gropper Gallery, if not a great exhibition, a stimulating one.