Reuben Nakian - Yesterday and Today

[Part Four]

by Robert Metzger 

Reuben Nakian (1897 - 1986)
Photo: Lois Dreyer, 1980

[Part Three of this essay appears in the November Newsletter and discusses Nakian's monumental sculptures of the 1960's and 70's which explore religion and mythology. Part Two, in the October Newsletter, sees Nakian into the 1940's and 50's, making his first explorations into monumental sculpture. Part One of this article, in the Newsletter of September 1999, describes Nakian's youth and artistic training, and his noteworthy portrait busts. Ed.]

Along with his three-dimensional small clay works, Nakian continued to compose large numbers of compositions in relief, shown both in terra cotta and the finished bronze, free standing as well as wall reliefs. Many of the reliefs are on the droll motif of Nymph and Goat, Leda and the Swan, Nymph and Dolphins and Europa and the Bull. On many of the reliefs the surface of the plate is slightly twisted and irregular and the edges are uneven. The wall reliefs have been nubbled so that sharp welts protrude at the edges. In the casting, the outline of the image is raised slightly against the smooth surface of the plate with an elegance and mastery of line.

The standing reliefs have been heavily gouged, the drawing cut deeply into the clay with a clean and sure clarity of the hand. These works recall the series of "rock drawings" dating from the mid-50's which in turn relate to the monumental series of steel pole and plate works from the same period. Nakian used a knife to slash into the wet clay surface with quick, decisive, and deep incisions. The small-scale rock drawing with its roughhewn surfaces was one of his most original inventions. Nakian labored over the bronze patina of the standing reliefs to achieve a richly colored surface with unexpected accents of green and brown growing out of the dark material.

Reuben Nakian
Nymph and Dolphins, 1981
Bronze, 40 x 56 x 27 inches
Collection of Vartkess and Rita Balian

Between 1980 and his death in 1986, Nakian created eleven significant large-scale works: Nymph and Dolphins, 1980, Juno, 1980, Satyricon 1,1981, Satyricon 11,1981, Voyage to Crete, 1982, Leda and the Swan I, 1983, Leda and the Swan II, 1984, Sea Rhapsody, 1984, Sea Odyssey, 1984, Danae and the Shower of Gold, 1984, and his last monumental work, Moonlight, 1985. In addition, during these last years he designed a number of small Styrofoam dolphin compositions.

Reuben Nakian
detail, Nymph and Dolphins, 1981
Bronze, 40 x 56 x 27 inches
Collection of Vartkess and Rita Balian

 Satyricon I, loosely based on the satirical ancient text by Petronius, as well as informed by Federico Fellini's film of 1969, returned the artist to familiar territory. Set in Nero's decadent first-century Rome, the playful flirtation between the young fleeing nymph and the lecherous, persistent goat is a theme which re-echoes throughout his late works. As in Petronius and Fellini, Nakian presents a fragmented dream fantasy with an elongated female interacting with an unusually grotesque goat on a flamboyant journey to the end of night. The figure of the nymph on the left is similar to the Running Nymph series which he completed the previous year. Subsequently, in the 1984 small version of Venus, the figure of the nymph is further simplified in a decidedly abstract composition of curved slender legs and torso. The smooth, rhythmic flow of the attenuated legs serve as a brilliant foil for Venus' polished phallic-like torso above, which gives this work a surprisingly androgynous quality.

In the last four years of his life, Nakian suffered from macular degeneration and his eyesight continued to deteriorate to the end. In 1984 this condition became particularly acute, after the completion of the biographical video film Apprentice to the Gods, which had been commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution. Not unlike Henri Matisse in his very last years, Nakian had difficulty discerning detail. During this period he created several Styrofoam cut-out works which were reminiscent of Matisse's late paper cutouts. In old age, each artist drew on the vast reservoir of a lifetime dedicated to art, enabling them to create a final statement of outstanding quality. In both instances, their late style was a radical departure from their earlier work, yet singularly their own.

Both Sea Rhapsody and Sea Odyssey of 1984 represent his continuing interest in the "joie de vivre" works. The playful dolphins interact with the innocent, coy nymph and amplify and expand on a number of related drawings, small clay sculptures, and Styrofoam cutouts. These joyful late works belie the fact that the artist was suffering from diminishing vision.

In his final monumental work, Moonlight of 1985, the irregularly rounded doughnut-like orb is surmounted on the curvilinear legs of a nude female. The image of the moon suggests a multilayered metaphor for the female torso, the human head, or the cycloptic eye. The diagonal positioning of the legs beneath the orb reveals a heavenly body emanating the lunar power of a moonbeam. The odd, strangely hypnotic juxtapositioning of forms once again leaves the viewer suspended between dream and reality. Recalling the eerie surreal quality of la Chambre à Coucher de l'Empereur thirty years earlier, Nakian's final statement evokes an ethereal serenity with subtle understatement.

The incredible fervid creativity of Reuben Nakian lives in the rich legacy of images he has left behind, and serves as an inspiration to several generations of younger artists to whom he is both legend and tangible force. Nakian is at the forefront of world sculptors of the twentieth century. His work embodies the energy, innovation, and ambition of America infused with the sensuosity, eloquence and tradition of the Mediterranean world.

With his astounding freshness of vision, Nakian took centuries-old themes which had been reworked by hundreds of skilled and renowned artists and breathed new idyllic life into them. He was capable of works of sublime spirituality and pagan seduction and, like Titian and Rodin before him, astonishes us with an unquenchable genius and authority.

[This essay is the fourth of four parts, adapted from Robert Metzger's catalogue for the exhibition, Reuben Nakian: Centennial Retrospective at the Reading Public Museum, Reading, PA (10 October 1998 - 10 January 1999) and at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (6 February - 4 April 1999). Ed.]

About the author:

Robert P. Metzger, Ph.D. is Director, Chief Curator and CEO of the Reading Public Museum. Prior to his current position, he served as the Director of the Center Gallery, Bucknell University and the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art (Ridgefield, Connecticut) and as Director of Art at the Stamford (Connecticut) Museum. He was a Professor at both Bucknell University and Pennsylvania State University and an Associate Professor at the University of Bridgeport (Connecticut). Robert Metzger received his Doctoral Degree in Art History from the University of California at Berkeley.