Outbreak (Losbruch), plate 5 of Peasants' War

1902–03

Line etching, drypoint, aquatint, emery and soft ground, corrected with pencil and opaque color, sheet 50.2 × 58.7 cm. Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin

A woman flings up her arms as armed peasants surge past her into revolt. This sheet is a working proof of the second state, not a finished edition print.

She came to the subject in 1901 through Wilhelm Zimmermann's account of the Peasants' War.
Though numbered fifth, it was the first plate of the cycle she finished.
Look at the woman's back, turned to us, so her raised arms seem to launch the crowd forward.
Rather than illustrating a text, this history print centers on rising up against injustice, giving an old revolt a social purpose.
The leading woman is "Black Anna," a figure from the revolt; this is probably the cycle's only plate showing a known person.

Etching: A print made from a metal plate whose lines are bitten into the metal with acid.
Aquatint: An etching method that bites areas of tone, not lines, into the plate.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain