Aegina (Gerhard Marcks)

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Aegina, bronze sculpture by Gerhard Marcks, Bremen, 1966
Upper body / detail of the reclining woman by Gerhard Marcks
Marcks' reclining woman in the Bremen ramparts

The larger than life bronze figure of the Great Reclining or Aegina by Gerhard Marcks , cast in 1966 , was one of the first sculptural additions to be made in 1968 on the slope of the Theaterberg in the Bremen Wallanlagen . Inspired by Günter Busch , the director of the Kunsthalle , Bremen had taken on the work of Marcks, perhaps the most important figurative sculptor in Germany in the post-war years, with the establishment of a sculpture museum dedicated to his work and named after him as well as two publicly displayed open-air sculptures ( Die Bremen Town Musicians and Der Rufer ) particularly devoted.

The title of the figure refers to the Greek island of Aegina , on which Marcks owned a small house, and so the sculpture with its softly modeled female body could be understood as the embodiment of this landscape. But Marcks will also have known the myth of the lovely nymph Aigina , whose beauty even beguiled Zeus, the father of the gods.

Even more important for finding the form of the sculpture are the studies that Marcks carried out on classical sculptures, for example on reclining figures from the gable corners of a Greek temple in Olympia. Rest and movement are brought into harmony in the figure of the recumbent, shaped entirely from the spirit of antiquity. Only the upper body rises slightly, almost floating from the base plate, the arms form a tectonic and yet very delicate framework around the head and upper body. Whether the half-open eyes should convey the awakening or perhaps rather an "expression shaped by reflection" is a rather subordinate question in view of the idealistic, anti-naturalistic design will of Marcks.

A second copy of the sculpture, also cast by Barth in Berlin, was in the art trade in 1977.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The spelling follows the catalog of works from 1977
  2. ↑ so Kammerer-Grothaus, p. 225
  3. ↑ The Aegina, rising from the camp when Zeus approached, is also a motif of Baroque painting. See the illustration in the article Aigina .
  4. ↑ so so Kammerer-Grothaus, p. 228
  5. ↑ Albrecht, p. 138
  6. ↑ Rudloff, p. 439

literature

  • Martina Rudloff: Gerhard Marcks: The plastic work . Frankfurt am Main [u. a.]: Propylaen-Verlag 1977, No. 866, p. 439.
  • Herbert Albrecht: Bremer Buildings and Monuments , Bremen 1979, pp. 135-138.
  • Helke Kammerer-Grothaus: Between Lust and Walk , Bremen 2002, pp. 225–228.

Web links

Commons : Aegina  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 34.6 "  N , 8 ° 48 ′ 47.4"  E