Gerhard Marcks
Mutter mit Kind (Mother with Child), 1957
Cast bronze
Museum Purchase
“I have endeavored to learn from great and good art everywhere, from the ancient Egyptians to my contemporaries: not what, but how.” Gerhard Marcks
In this seemingly simple sculpture of a mother and child, German artist Gerhard Marcks synthesizes a wide array of influences. After a trip to Greece, Marcks decided to strip away extraneous detail and simplify his figures, as in Archaic Greek sculpture.
While you were looking at Mutter mit Kind, did it remind you of anything besides Greek sculpture? For a Christian viewer, the sculpture may call to mind the countless images of the Virgin Mary and Christ Child in Western art history. In particular, this work looks like a Medieval sculpture of the type where Mary serves as a throne for her son. Think about the child in this image. Does he look like an average baby? Is he doing the things a typical baby does? To our eyes, Medieval depictions of the Christ Child often look like a tiny adult, rather than a baby. This is because Medieval artists worried that making Christ too believable would overemphasize his human, rather than divine, nature. They wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t just any old infant. The upright pose and serene facial expression of Marcks’ child seem to harken back to these Medieval prototypes.
Marcks may also have been thinking of a Renaissance incarnation of the Virgin Mary, known as the Madonna of Mercy or the sheltering-cloak Madonna. In these images, the Virgin spreads her cloak to protect the needy and her devotees, although Marcks does not include any figures beneath the cloak. This allows his sculpture to have a broader meaning, beyond traditional Christian iconography.