Gerhard Marcks
Freya, 1949
Cast bronze
Museum Purchase
A sculpture of a nude woman may not seem particularly radical by today’s standards, but Gerhard Marcks’ Freya demonstrates the avant-garde spirit of an artist who defied the Nazis. Marcks worked at the preeminent German art and design school, the Bauhaus, when the Nazis came to power. The SS held definitive views on what constituted good and bad art, and they believed Marcks’ work was too modern. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Marcks refused to adopt the realist style of the Nazis, and he was removed from his post and labeled a “degenerate” artist. The Nazis went even further in their vendetta against his sculpture—few of his bronzes survived World War II, as the Germans melted them down to make shell casings. The Russians didn’t care much for his work either; during the fall of Germany, the Red army broke into his studio and smashed many of his surviving sculptures.
Norse mythology associates Freya with many things—war, death, and gold among them—but Marcks focuses on her primary aspects of sex, love, and beauty. Freya stands in a classic contrapposto stance, which means that her weight is all on one leg, while the other is relaxed. This creates a sense of movement throughout her body, because it changes the position of her hips, shoulders, and head as well. It also makes her pose more challenging for an artist because half of her muscles are engaged while the others are slack.