Chattanooga Pulse

The recent installation of Daud Akhriev’s bronzes “Spring” and “Summer” at the Market Street Bridge (south end) presents an invaluable aesthetic achievement. These nine-foot statues comprise the first half of a four-part installation, “The Four Seasons,” which will grace each corner of the bridge upon completion. These astute and lovely personifications welcome us to the bridge’s ascending incline and happily adorn this bridge in which Chattanooga has taken great pride.

Enlivening by day and enchantingly spotlit by night, these gracious nudes remind us of the endless potential of the creative spirit. They wonderfully demonstrate how Chattanooga has embraced the creative spirit. “Spring” and “Summer” are gifts to all who contemplate their bountiful forms.

Daud Akhriev has been an accomplished painter for some time. These bronzes transpose his talent for expression into the medium of sculpture. Excelling in realist portrayal of both objects, like our bridges, and figures, both human and mystic, Akhriev brings an organic conception to these figures that recognizes the blending of the traditional with the contemporary.

Stylistic nuance serves a broad perspective of artistic representation. These nudes arise from the mythic goddesses, and this sets them apart from the human, even as projections of the human imagination, and paradoxically projects both clarity and mystery. The sublime tradition merges with a more contemporary perspective in that the attitudes of these figures are dynamic, implying a range of motion, while their presentations demonstrate a contemporary, minimalist symbolism.

At the dedication, Akhriev explained how he had been inspired by the bridge during its restoration, and he has familiarity with the public art of great cities in Europe. He also explained how his friend Cessna Decosimo mentored him in the subtleties of sculpture. This clearly turned out well. Ahkriev’s initial vision was supported by other artists and citizens, including John and Diane Marek, developed momentum and gained approval from the public art program and the State of Tennessee, which oversees bridge rights of way.

Local sculptor Isaac Duncan describes the figures as “elegant” and notes their enhancement of Chattanooga’s public art collection through their “honoring of the classics and the European heritage of Chattanooga.” Duncan sees “Spring” as “bashful and sprightly” and “Summer” as “confident and bold.”

I am very impressed by the languid dynamism of “Spring” (southeast corner). Her eyes, not quite focused, and the attitude of her limbs, showing the nascent movement of awakening, as if from some deep dream, the realization of movement here represents a semi-conscious awareness. Another element of this dynamism comes with the “leafing” of her skin; we observe organic forms growing out of her figure. “Spring” balances upon a sphere. We may view the seasons as hemispherically local to our globe, as indeed, her foot rests upon a hemisphere. Yet the proportionality of the nine-foot figure resting on the much smaller sphere suggests the universality of spring, as the whole world awakens to the spirit of renewal.

The dynamic attitude of “Summer” (southwest corner) possesses great subtlety. Fully awake in radiance, she bends in excited contemplation of the moment. In her representation resides the essence of inertia: stillness, and motion in abeyance. “Summer” presents the spirit of our existence, a breathless potential balanced on the verge of action.

Chattanoogans are truly blessed with such exemplary iconography. “Spring” and “Summer” will ever remind us of our better qualities and of our rising stature in the world art community.