By Hartwig Garnerus
Conservative nudes by Martin Mayer
Gaia, among the Greeks goddess of the earth, emerged from chaos. She was mother of Uranus, and by him mother of the Titans, Giants and Erynnians; all-mother of the cult, progenitor of all life and growth (note 1): Various authors have characterised the female nudes of Martin Mayer as past or future archetypes of Gaia, either directly or in paraphrase, for example as "vegetative creatures, who appear entirely self-contained" (Franz Roh, note 2). Almost all interpretations – strangely, these sculptures have found fewer descriptions – seem to have encountered difficulties clarifying the range of expression, which extends from the primordial and earthy to a Mediterranean meaningfulness, but also includes contemporary human images, postures and gestures, depicted in the sculptor's own formal language and with his expressive power.
Martin Mayer is certainly a conservative sculptor – the problem of conservatism will be discussed below – just as he rightly sees himself as a contemporary sculptor. Two of his more recent works, the Knieende from 1975 and in particular the Schwimmerin from 1977 as a commissioned work, prove this. The latter, in her typification and swimming costume as well as in the way she puts on her swimming cap, i.e. in her situational movement, is definitely more "present" than the rounded, closed, self-absorbed Knieende. Both female figures are of a fullness and massiveness that, for all their physical heaviness, is without clumsiness and commands more pleasure for the eyes than a brooding sense of depth. They bring to mind the novel by Louis-Ferdinand Céline in which he speaks with respectful glorification of the formidable wife of the metal-worker Gorloge: "She was a powerful nature... a former model... Supposedly she had thighs like monuments, enormous columns... She was very corpulent, splendid curves. One could never have imagined such a huge arse, taut, muscular, well split, despite her enormous buttocks she is as agile as a cat." (note 3)
Of course, Mayer's nude sculptures are neither narrative nor anecdotal. If some of her titles, such as Purzelnde (falling figure), have a conventionally genre-like flavour, this was probably not intended to express or depict something cute. The sculptures are too monumental for that, rather than to linguistically conceal or attenuate an overtly lustful physicality. No matter how one attempts to approach a conservative-naturalistic nude sculpture, one will always have to deal with the pair of terms conservative/conventional: A judgement on independence and artistic aspiration, insofar as these go beyond the realm of the applied arts and do not solely require craftsmanship, can best be gained from that non-academic tradition which, despite its lack of "inventions", has nevertheless left the realm of the purely academic behind.
It would probably not occur to anyone to place the above quote from Céline alongside Aristide Maillol's female nudes, which on closer comparison are less exemplary than they might at first suggest. The affinity with Maillol's sculptures, if one takes his Leda (c. 1902) as a favourable comparison, is due to a similar, albeit in Maillol's case more contrapostal unity and fullness, the simplification of forms (which in Maillol's case is said to have been inspired by Gaugin's original nudes), a simple competence. If in Maillol's sculptures neither the structure of the skeleton nor the movement of individual muscles can be read directly, this is the result of both stylistic intention and the choice of model, which in turn is due to the sculptor's taste and temperament. Maillol's more classicistic rendering of the figure, with its elegant forms and unobtrusive pathos of internalisation, separates it from Mayer's.
Mayer's sculptures, modelled with stupendous certainty from nude models, seem, especially in the physiognomy, to move away from a model-bound verisimilitude in favour of a typification, to simplify, and thus on the one hand to lead to the certain type of woman described by Céline, as we occasionally encounter her – dressed – in the neighbourhood or on the street, and on the other hand so de-typified, i.e. transformed from the portrait-like into a seemingly universal facial expression, that the viewer can get the impression of an unconsciously serious primal being.
It is less the quiet objectivity than the wit and gaiety associated with spirited fullness and joyful gestures that are remotely reminiscent of the untroubled joie de vivre of Niki de Saint Phalle's buxom, colourful figures – without, however, aspiring to their poppy, exaggerated comedy. One could also see a certain affinity to Fernando Botero's corpulent Eve in the unbroken nature of the nudes, but with a distanced, alienated sensuality. The larger, smoothed corpulence of Botero's figures is more simplified and "anaemic" in form, thus appearing less monumental, less vivid. On the other hand, monumentality is one of the defining characteristics of Martin Mayer's nudes, regardless of their size.
Perhaps, after Maillol, Niki de Saint Phalle and Fernando Botero, a comparison with works by Gerhard Marcks leads more directly to the conservative and independent nature of Mayer's works. The reference to Marcks is not only useful because Gerhard Marcks, who was more than 40 years older than Mayer, expressed his admiration for the younger artist in letters: "Your sculptures have a Mediterranean perfection in which sensuality has found the most beautiful adequate form" (1967) and "Certainly, you are a master craftsman. What you want to express is achieved in a straightforward way: a lively, powerful conception and a clear formal language. In addition, a clean craft, which today is counted as a weakness, but sub specie aeternitatis art cannot be separated from serious craft..." (1970, note 4). If we place Gerhard Marck's Eva from 1944-1946 alongside Martin Mayer's Schwimmerin (1977), the comparison, which is more than 40 years closer in time in relation to Maillol's Leda, still proves to be 30 years behind.
The continuity of conservative nude sculpture over a period of almost a century of modern artistic development that has left the academic approach behind is an astonishing phenomenon. It would be absurd to attribute the Schwimmerin to Gerhard Marcks or an earlier academically figurative sculptor. Both Marck's Eva and Mayer's Schwimmerin are roughly life-size. If we disregard the different postures relating to the works' motifs and the differing structures, their composition is the same: The body and extremities are summarised in large, taut sections, the legs are similarly columnar. Yet behind the similar structure of the sculptures, different spiritual attitudes can be discerned. How could the erect fullness of the Schwimmerin on slightly splayed legs stand in such a majestic, distanced and alluring way as the Eve, from the thematic accusation alone? The charming behaviour of an Eve is part of a centuries-old tradition – think, for example, of the carved Eve or Lucrezia by Konrad Meit (around 1525-1530)... while a swimmer in a tight-fitting swimming costume as a life-size sculptural motif is, as far as I know, without tradition. As a figure from a contemporary mass sport, her almost archaic features with the trusting smile of a Kore (Kore = Greek for "girl") suit her surprisingly well.
In comparison to Marcks, the heads are modelled so much more softly that the lines of the brows, the cut of the eyes and the mouth do not stand out and, on the contrary, only attain their particularity in their relative lack of expression. The nose and the entire facial modelling are flat, unclassically broad, almost fluidly modelled like some pre-classical terracotta masks. If Marck's Eva could embody Goethe's Gretchen as well as a Helena, Martin Mayer's female figures are characterised by a more general and mature sensuality, which we would rather expect from Aphrodite (Venus). Descriptively, we note that "Mediterranean" and "classicist" cannot be united in our case, because the pronounced fullness of the body and the stylistic and expressive means of the moulded surface (which occasionally results in a peculiarly dull effect) are alien to classicism.
On the other hand, sensuality, closeness to life or overabundance will hardly lead us to the term "baroque". Rather, something independent seems to emerge in this threshold and self-contained verism, which is committed to a personal ideal of beauty, which in turn accommodates an exhaustive possibility for monumental plasticity.
Despite their majestic physicality, Mayer's female nudes are neither threatening nor heavy. One secret may lie in the tension between passionate, arrested movement and, at the same time, great calm and formal unity.
Sensual pleasure blossoms without obscenity, the woman is celebrated without hesitation and false pathos. Understandably, such naturalistic, self-contained sensuality, bursting with form, finds similar sympathy and antipathy, albeit from different camps, such as Rolf Szymansik's expressionist-abstract large sculpture The Public Rose, also a celebration of women. The latter is much more difficult to comprehend as an enormous, fascinating and perplexing invention. The past teaches us that both figurative and non-figurative art can be appropriated for the purposes of indoctrination. The sentences quoted from Gerd Marcks echo the resignation of someone whose work had to assert itself against the abstract, "modern" view. "A woman is a woman is a woman?" is less my trivialisation of Gertrude Stein's "A rose is a rose is a rose" than a means of describing the continuity of Martin Mayer's female figures. All contemporary depictions of nudes have to face up to the historic burden placed on the naturalistic nude by the depictions of the 1930s, which were already prefigured beforehand, also in pseudo-literature, for as long as more than a memory of that time is alive. In 1926, one could read the following hypocritical verses about the "woman in noble nudity" in a "Kultur-Album", a magazine for nude photography published in Berlin, of all places:
"... For the blessing of the earth
Heralding the eternal future. -
You give women's magic
From your rich, full source of life
So that when doubts grow about the earth
The faith of man in thee may be restored!"
After such earthly, gelatinous phrasal mythology, I perceive the Eros and the corporeality of Martin Mayer's nudes as one of the liberating paths left to conservative nude sculpture. In the beginning I described Gaia as the progenitor of all life and growth. I consider Céline's lifelike language, even if it lacks the aura of mystery, to be more fitting thanvegetative mumbling.
Notes
1) According to an encyclopedia entry from 1904
2, 4) Cited from Hans Konrad Roethel
3) Louis Ferdinand Céline, Mort à Crédit, Paris, 1936
Die Kunst + Das schöne Heim
93. Jahrgang, Heft 3, März 1981
Seite 157-160