examples – 28 – Aphrodite – forbidden Love

Aphrodite – forbidden Love 

The female figure, modeled after the Greek goddess Aphrodite, stands on the landing of the staircase in her house. She wears a garland of flowers draped over her shoulder. At her feet and by her head lies a brown plush dog, a German Shepherd, nestled against the woman’s face.

“Up there on the stairs, that sculpture. It reminds me of my mother” the old child says to me in passing.

Family conflicts dating back to the Nazi era continue to this day. B. was too gentle for German National Socialism. She was too loving and lenient with her children. Schneider stripped this love—and thus this woman—of its power by isolating her from her children. Under their father’s guidance, the children became accomplices in their mother’s social exclusion within the family.

At the Muellerhouse: B. sitting at the piano with her sisters

Having lost her son, the Müller house,  her home Rombas, completely isolated, lonely, and forced by her husband to do everything, B. took her own life in 1947. And the child had loved his mother so dearly.

After the mother’s suicide Schneider will successfully train the child to now care for him. The child grows cold and becomes like a kingfisher. Dazzling in character and lightning-fast in attack, for ever hiding her fears and her love.