Germaine Richier

(France) *1902 in Grans; †1959 in Montpellier

With Germaine Richier, one of the great sculptresses of the 20th century is represented in “Blickachsen”. From the mid-1940’s she developed her characteristic hybrid figures from human and animal forms. The artist herself speaks of fantastic autonomous creatures, of hybrids both nervous and aggressive: poetically motivated transformations of the found, the living. “La Montagne” (The Mountain) is a mysterious piece, completed by Richier only three years before her death. This monumental work seems both powerful and fragile. Two highly opposing figures stand facing each other. It is unclear what connects them – a fight, an encounter, a verbal disagreement or exchange, or maybe even an elementary living process such as a birth or an animalistic mating? They seem to embody two competing life principles, yet at the same time it is as though they stabilise each other and keep each other in balance. A male and a female principle seem to be being suggested here. The meaning of the title “The Mountain” remains, however, obscure. One could easily imagine the artist has here represented a scene taken from memory, substituting it, as a title, with the name of the location in which it took place.