Louisa Edith Church Maryon (9 February 1872, in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

– 2 May 1924, in

Dornach : ''Dornach is also a quarter of the French city of Mulhouse and the Scots name for Dornoch in the Scottish Highlands, and Dòrnach is the Gaelic name for Dornoch in the Scottish Highlands.'' Dornach (Swiss German: ''Dornech'') is a municipalit ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

), better known as Edith Maryon, was an English

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

. Along with

Ita Wegman Ita Wegman (22 February 1876 – 4 March 1943) co-founded Anthroposophical Medicine with Rudolf Steiner. In 1921, she founded the first anthroposophical medical clinic in Arlesheim, known until 2014 as the Ita Wegman Clinic. She also developed a s ...

, she belonged to the innermost circle of founders of

anthroposophy Anthroposophy is a spiritual new religious movementSources for 'new religious movement': which was founded in the early 20th century by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner that postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensibl ...

and those around

Rudolf Steiner Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (; 27 or 25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century ...

.Paull, John (2018
"A Portrait of Edith Maryon: Artist and Anthroposophist"
Journal of Fine Arts, 1(2):8-15.

Life and work

Edith Maryon was the second of six children. Her parents were John Maryon Simeon and his wife Louisa Church who lived in London where she grew up. She attended a girls school and later went to a boarding school in the Swiss city of

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

. During the 1890s she studied sculpture in

at the Central School of Design, and from 1896 at the Royal College of Arts. She exhibited at the Royal Academy. Her works of that period showed her leaning toward the subject of Christianity, such as a model of Michael, the relief ''The Seeker of Divine Wisdom'' and ''The Cross of Golgotha''. Maryon met Rudolf Steiner in 1912/13 and after the summer of 1914 she moved to

. She worked with Steiner on the construction of the

first Goetheanum The Goetheanum, located in Dornach, in the canton of Solothurn, Switzerland, is the world center for the anthroposophical movement. The term refers to two structures, the first was in use 1919 to 1922 and destroyed by fire; the second was comple ...

, and with him on the modelling and carving of the wooden sculpture ''The Representative of Humanity''. Steiner designed the nine-metre high sculpture to be placed in the first Goetheanum. Now on permanent display at the second Goetheanum, it shows a central, free-standing Christ holding a balance between the beings of

Lucifer The most common meaning for Lucifer in English is as a name for the Devil in Christian theology. He appeared in the King James Version of the Bible in Isaiah and before that in the Vulgate (the late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bib ...

and

Ahriman Angra Mainyu (; ) is the Avestan name of Zoroastrianism's hypostasis of the "destructive/evil spirit" and the main adversary in Zoroastrianism either of the Spenta Mainyu, the "holy/creative spirits/mentality", or directly of Ahura Mazda, th ...

, representing opposing tendencies of expansion and contraction. The sculpture was intended to present, in contrast to Michelangelo's

Last Judgment The Last Judgment is a concept found across the Abrahamic religions and the '' Frashokereti'' of Zoroastrianism. Christianity considers the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to entail the final judgment by God of all people who have ever lived, res ...

, Christ as mute and impersonal such that the beings that approach him must judge themselves. At a foundation meeting held during Christmas 1923 Steiner nominated Maryon as leader of the Section for the Plastic Arts at the Goetheanum (or Sculptural Arts) (German ''Sektion für Bildende Künste'').Currently known as "fine arts" or "visual arts": Bildend

fin

visua

/ref> The following May, she died of

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

References

External links

*
Literature by and about Edith Maryon
in the catalog of the

German National Library The German National Library (DNB; ) is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany. It is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its task is to collect, permanently archive, comprehens ...

Edith Maryon Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maryon, Edith 1872 births 1924 deaths 19th-century English sculptors 19th-century English women artists 20th-century English sculptors 20th-century English women artists Alumni of the Royal College of Art Anthroposophists English women sculptors Sculptors from London

Life and work

References

Further reading

External links