By Thomas Gädeke
The ideal of the well-toned body has dominated art since the times of ancient Greece. Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the father of modern art history, points out that the whole of Greek society was imbued with an ideal of beauty and that it was not only in sporting competitions that the beauty of the human body in motion was appreciated: ‘and at the festival of the Philesian Apollo, a prize for the most exquisite kiss was conferred on the youthful’. The teachings of ancient art were not forgotten in the Middle Ages and were revitalised again and again in subsequent Renaissances and made the subject of artistic training. This only came to an end after 1800, when the academic training of artists became set and formularised.
This sculptor celebrates the beauty of the female body in highly abstract representations, thereby fulfilling an essential task of modernism: To conquer the forms of nature in one's own way.
The art of Martin Mayer is of a different kind. This sculptor celebrates the beauty of the female body in highly abstract representations, thereby fulfilling an essential task of modernism: To conquer the forms of nature in one's own way.
Although Martin Mayer was born in Berlin in 1931, his family came from the Palatinate. He remained attached to this region, and many of his works are installed there in public spaces. He trained under Theodor Georgii (1883-1963) in Munich, where he lived and worked from then until his death in 2022. As a result, numerous large sculptures can also be found in public spaces in Munich and the surrounding area. The example of Georgii's art and that of his teacher (and father-in-law) Adolf von Hildebrand were important to Mayer, this helps to explain the distance between his work and that of the other principal figurative sculptor in Munich, Hans Wimmer (1907-1992), while Toni Stadler (1888-1982) was, like him, a pupil of Georgii.
We are far from honouring the fullness of his rich sculptural and graphic oeuvre here, which is present in public spaces in the form of portrait sculptures, animal figures and, above all, large-format bronzes. These include the St James pilgrim in Speyer and in southern France, figural fountains in Schleswig and Pfaffenhofen/Ilm, St Francis as a messenger of peace in Munich and Mannheim, and the Luther statue in Weissenburg and Landau.
This article is limited to the most important group of depictions of the female figure in the context of sport in his oeuvre. Mayer was not an above-average sports enthusiast. His field of interest was the female form, whose concentration and vigour unfold in his bronzes during sport - especially swimming. In countless drawings and lithographs - as well as in masterful photographs - he found the 'figure of the plump young woman as a fitting icon', as Werner Haftmann put it, and examined and explored her range of movement countless times. The 44 cm high bronze swimmer from 1962 embodies some of the attriubutes of a naturalistic study, but suppresses these in favour of an abstract-architectural overall form. The figure, which is shown on the starting block before diving into the pool to compete, is divided into dominant axes.
A triangular form consisting of thighs, torso and arms emanates from the lower legs, standing vertically on large feet, from which the head stretches upwards, thus marking the figure as a living being. At the same time, the legs of the triangle interlock symbolically. The figure is transformed from an abstract, constructive basic form into a living one through the addition of swelling organic shapes and the counter-balance between the knees and deeper-reaching hands. This modern awareness of form can also be seen in other works.
The woman washing her hair from 1969 is larger than life, measuring 129 cm tall with a bent posture, and stands in front of a Munich residential complex (formerly a post office). One might be reminded of the fairy tale; 'Rapunzel, let down your hair'. In fact, the process of grooming her overly long tresses has been taken as an opportunity to form a stable, tripod structure in a plausible way. We see the female athlete restoring her appearance after training or competition. The powerful calves are brought together to bring the body into the necessary equilibrium so that the hands are free to deal with the splendid lengths of the hair, which are by no means depicted as plump like the rest of the body, but are held together in one strand by their wetness and split open again by the washing hand.
The 78 cm tall figure from 1971, named 'Alraune' by the artist, depicts the female body during a gymnastic exercise. To tighten the abdominal muscles, the upper body and the crossed legs are lifted into the air. Fleshy voluptuousness and athletic fitness are combined here to create an impression of loveliness. The poetic-sounding name, meaning 'mandrake', refers to the medicinal plant of the same name, the root of which was already compared to the human figure in ancient times. In 1987, Mayer reiterated this composition on a larger scale, measuring 330 cm in length, in his 'Filia Rheni' (Daughter of the Rhine) for the Federal Post Ministry (now the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection) on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn.
Martin Mayer's art reached a culmination when he set himself the task of creating a large sculpture for the 1972 Munich Olympics. With the 'Olympia Triumphans' (the triumphant Olympia), a 385 cm high bronze figure, completed in 1973, he also achieved a triumph in his art. The acrobatic posture is certainly inspired by motifs from swimming, but in this exaggerated depiction of sport per se, no single sporting discipline is the subject. Exuberance, joy and bodily control emanate from the figure, which expresses all the confident and positive aspects of sport as a unifying experience in its Y-shaped form, which can be seen from miles around.
The shape of the sphere permeates every aspect of the composition.
The shape of the sphere permeates every aspect of the composition. Starting from the pure sphere that embraces the figure, the spherical shapes of the head, breasts and buttocks are striking, connected by the taut, muscular back and leading into the marvellously relaxed gesture of the plump, spreading legs. It is remarkable that the artist has created an iconic depiction of sport that is not based on a realistic representation of a sporting figure, but rather epitomises sporting joy and attitude.
The Latin inscription on the ball is not a quotation, but was formulated by Martin Mayer himself: PER NATURAM AD ARTEM, PER ARTEM AD NATURAM, AD HOMINUM PIETATEM, AD HUMANITATEM EXSTRUENDAM emphasises the timeless nature of his depiction. The translation reads: Through nature to art, through art to nature, to the reverence of mankind, to humanity. Piety, a sense of duty and humility also resonates in ‘Pietas’. How fortunate that the assassination attempt on the Israeli team, which struck at the heart of this Olympiad, was still beyond the reach of anyone's imagination when the figure was conceived and when the Games were being prepared, so that the idealistic and reconciliatory aspirations that had existed since Baron de Coubertin (who revitalised the Olympics in 1894) could be expressed in an unbiased manner.
The sculptor continued to be fascinated by sporting motifs. In 1976/1977, he created the 205 cm tall swimmer, which is displayed in a swimming pool in Munich and as a second cast in the natural outdoor pool in Albstadt-Tailfingen in Swabia. Here, he captured the figure in a moment of inner composure and concentration in preparation for the competition. She stands firmly before us in her swimming costume and puts on her swimming cap, ready to jump into the pool at the starting signal. That is the recognisable action. But how does Mayer realise it? He builds the figure like a tower, allowing the calves to rise up from the slightly angled feet and, after the interruption of the knees, the mighty thighs, above which the hem of the swimming costume marks the hips. Beyond this, the body swings in without particularly emphasising the breasts. The gaze is directed upwards and our attention is drawn to the raised arms, whose elbows extend beyond the width of the hips and create a base to complete the gesture in a trapezoidal figure.
Susanna, created in 1982, can be seen as an erotic version of this.
Susanna, created in 1982, can be seen as an erotic version of this. The bronze figure is slightly larger than life at 210 cm and stood in the open-air courtyard of a now demolished sports facility in Munich from 1982 to 2022. At the end of 2024, it was reinstalled in the Prinzregentenbad in Munich. Here, Mayer deals with an age-old art historical theme ‘Susanna and the Elders’, a story told in the Bible in the Book of Daniel. However, Mayer restricts himself to the figure of Susanna and does not depict the biblical story in full. The figure is constructed in a similar way to the swimmer. Here, too, the gaze is drawn upwards, where the exposure of the breasts appears almost scandalous. The body - and in particular the face - remains indistinct beneath the cloth pulled up above it, only to return to active clarity in the hand that has emerged from beneath the fabric.
Our observations may have shown that in his art, behind the subject matter depicted, there is a non-representational order that constitutes artistic value and meaning in itself. Martin Mayer himself has answered questions about the secret meaning of his works in a disarmingly clear way:
'People often ask me what I was thinking when I created a particular sculpture. I don't think questions like that can be answered. What I was thinking, what I was thinking with a figure, is what's there. I have expressed that in the figure itself. There are no riddles to guess at. I would say that in the case of non-figurative works, sometimes, or even in most cases, they require an explanation.'