Bild Zoom

In 1991, after a long absence, Heinz Mack not only goes back to canvas painting, but also as a sculptor he turns increasingly again to tradition. In the nineties above all, he creates, besides urban place decorations and big sculptures like the Große Meditation of 1995, an oeuvre of small sculptures. Apart from glass, steel, brass or bronze works, a lot of selected stones are used: for instance, cream-coloured (Hera) and black marble (Das Schweigen — The Silence, 1994) or blue Brazilian granite; valuable ebonies are also processed to sculptures. Although Mack disapproves of figures in the narrow sense, and though his smaller sculptures aim at the representation of sensations or general concepts, he returns to a traditional motif in his Mädchen-Torso (Girl Torso).

The upper body of a young girl with its beautiful lines, stretched upwards and flatly tensed as if a ballet dancer, is easily recognizable, admirable in the narrow waist and in the collar at the upper end suggested by the finely chiselled notch. It is matched by the hard solidity of the blue and white marbled granite showing local dark blue inclusions, but also already bigger parts of white crystallization. Some horizontal tears let foresee a quick further lightening and body changes. The shape of the square brown pedestal is also exactly measured in content; it forms regular prongs in the zone of the standing surface, which confer a defensive character to the whole figure. Mack says: "Colours are an expression of the soul, whereas the forms represent the spirit."