Sculpture Model and Inspiration
The model who posed for the statue, Valentina Izotova, a native of the city, is still recognized for her resemblance to the statue. She was recruited by Lev Maistrenko, an artist who was working on the memorial complex in the early 1960s.
According to some sources the statue was partially inspired by the Winged Victory of Samothrace, with somewhat more extended drapery. Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov is buried in the area of the monument, as is famous Soviet sniper Vasily Zaytsev, who killed 225 Axis soldiers in the battle of Stalingrad.
Read more about this topic: The Motherland Calls
Famous quotes containing the words sculpture, model and/or inspiration:
“Ah, to build, to build!
That is the noblest art of all the arts.
Painting and sculpture are but images,
Are merely shadows cast by outward things
On stone or canvas, having in themselves
No separate existence. Architecture,
Existing in itself, and not in seeming
A something it is not, surpasses them
As substance shadow.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
“When you model yourself on people, you should try to resemble their good sides.”
—Molière [Jean Baptiste Poquelin] (1622–1673)
“Poets should be lawgivers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead, the civil code, and the day’s work. But now the two things seem irreconcilably parted.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)