Gerhard Marcks
Goat
Artista
Gerhard Marcks
1889 Berlin - Burgbrohl/Eifel 1981
Ulteriori informazioni
Dieses Exemplar wurde 1994 gegossen.
Wir danken Dr. Arie Hartog, Gerhard-Marcks-Haus Bremen, für die freundlichen Hinweise bei der Katalogisierung dieses Werkes.
Rudloff 810.
Wir danken Dr. Arie Hartog, Gerhard-Marcks-Haus Bremen, für die freundlichen Hinweise bei der Katalogisierung dieses Werkes.
Rudloff 810.
Mostra
Art in the Park, Galerie Gmurzynska im Hotel Baur au Lac, Zürich 2009, S. 14, farb. Abb. (Detail).
Provenienza
Alice Hanstein Collection, Cologne;
Private collection, Switzerland.
Private collection, Switzerland.
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Descrizione
• Life-size figure of a billy goat with the reduced form characteristic of Marcks
• Designed as a fountain figure for a square in Cologne-Deutz
• Known as the ‘Düxer Bock’, the animal is firmly rooted in local legend
Commissioned by the City of Cologne, Gerhard Marcks designed a billy goat as a fountain figure in 1963 for a small square on Lorenzstraße in Cologne-Deutz to mark the 500th anniversary of the Deutz St. Sebastianus Shooting Brotherhood. The fountain was inaugurated in October 1964. The life-size bronze animal figure stands on a 2.5-metre-high stone column with a stylised Romanesque cube capital in a shallow rectangular water basin. The fountain has been a listed monument since 1989; in 1993, the overall ensemble was granted listed status, including the eleven buildings constructed between 1959 and 1962 that line the square.
Gerhard Marcks’s billy goat displays the artist’s characteristic reduction in form and a great statuary calm. Despite the simplified form, Marcks succeeds in capturing the typical essence of the billy goat in the naturalistic details; if you look very closely, it seems to be smiling mischievously. Perhaps it is aware of the legend surrounding it, the famous ‘Düxer Bock’?
The "Düxer Bock" is the unofficial heraldic animal of the Cologne district of Deutz (Düx = Kölsch for Deutz) and has its origins in an old local anecdote. A poor tailor from Deutz bred songbirds in small cages outside his workshop to supplement his meagre wages. His neighbour, a wealthy tax collector who liked to sleep in, felt disturbed by the birds singing early in the morning and sued the tailor. To no avail! So he came up with the idea of getting his own back on his neighbour: he bought a billy goat, hung it up in a large basket and barely fed it. The hungry animal then bleated all day long and could be heard across the overall street. The locals were amused, and from then on the poor tailor was mockingly known only as ‘Bleating Tailor’. Later, the tax collector replaced the live animal with a stone billy goat on the wall of his house. But despite all the quarrelling, the story did have a ‘happy ending’: the tailor’s daughter and the tax collector’s son fell in love and got married. Since 2017, the previously nameless little square where Gerhard Marcks’ billy goat has stood since 1964 has been called ‘Am Düxer Bock’.
• Designed as a fountain figure for a square in Cologne-Deutz
• Known as the ‘Düxer Bock’, the animal is firmly rooted in local legend
Commissioned by the City of Cologne, Gerhard Marcks designed a billy goat as a fountain figure in 1963 for a small square on Lorenzstraße in Cologne-Deutz to mark the 500th anniversary of the Deutz St. Sebastianus Shooting Brotherhood. The fountain was inaugurated in October 1964. The life-size bronze animal figure stands on a 2.5-metre-high stone column with a stylised Romanesque cube capital in a shallow rectangular water basin. The fountain has been a listed monument since 1989; in 1993, the overall ensemble was granted listed status, including the eleven buildings constructed between 1959 and 1962 that line the square.
Gerhard Marcks’s billy goat displays the artist’s characteristic reduction in form and a great statuary calm. Despite the simplified form, Marcks succeeds in capturing the typical essence of the billy goat in the naturalistic details; if you look very closely, it seems to be smiling mischievously. Perhaps it is aware of the legend surrounding it, the famous ‘Düxer Bock’?
The "Düxer Bock" is the unofficial heraldic animal of the Cologne district of Deutz (Düx = Kölsch for Deutz) and has its origins in an old local anecdote. A poor tailor from Deutz bred songbirds in small cages outside his workshop to supplement his meagre wages. His neighbour, a wealthy tax collector who liked to sleep in, felt disturbed by the birds singing early in the morning and sued the tailor. To no avail! So he came up with the idea of getting his own back on his neighbour: he bought a billy goat, hung it up in a large basket and barely fed it. The hungry animal then bleated all day long and could be heard across the overall street. The locals were amused, and from then on the poor tailor was mockingly known only as ‘Bleating Tailor’. Later, the tax collector replaced the live animal with a stone billy goat on the wall of his house. But despite all the quarrelling, the story did have a ‘happy ending’: the tailor’s daughter and the tax collector’s son fell in love and got married. Since 2017, the previously nameless little square where Gerhard Marcks’ billy goat has stood since 1964 has been called ‘Am Düxer Bock’.