Marino Marini

Umbro Apollonio, Marino Marini scultore, Milan, 1953, illustration of another cast pl. 94
Helmut Lederer & Eduard Trier, The Sculpture of Marino Marini, London & Stuttgart, 1961, nos. 66-67, illustrations of another cast
Franco Russoli, Marino Marini - pitture e disegni, Milan, 1963, illustration of another cast pl. 10
Jirí Šetlik, Marini, Prague, 1966, no. 42, illustration of another cast
Patrick Waldberg, Herbert Read & Gualtieri di San Lazzaro, Marino Marini, Complete Works, New York, 1970, no. 267, illustration of another cast p. 204
Carlo Pirovano, Marino Marini. Scultore, Milan, 1972, no. 273, illustration of another cast p. 162
'Hommage à Marino Marini', in XXe Siècle, Paris, 1974, p. 34
Anna Nerse Szinyei, Marini, Budapest, 1977, illustration of another cast no. 25
Marino Marini, Japan, 1978, no. 112, illustration of another cast
Marco Meneguzzo, Marino Marini - Cavalli e Cavalieri, Milan, 1997, no. 53
Fondazione Marino Marini (ed.), Marino Marini, Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculptures, Milan, 1998, no. 338b, illustration of another cast p. 239

Piccolo cavaliere is a wonderful example of Marini's most celebrated theme, that of the horse and rider, adorned with a uniquely finished surface, hand-painted by the artist in shades of red and yellow. Capturing the movement of the two figures in its most dramatic moment, when the rider begins his inevitable fall, the present work exemplifies Marini's dynamic renderings of this theme that characterised his art throughout the 1950s. In contrast to the softer shapes of his earlier sculptures, in which the animal is rendered in a more tranquil mode, often with a rider firmly seated on the horse's back, the present work is dominated by sharper lines that represent the loss of stability and the broken equilibrium, and that invest the work with a sense of energy and primal force. With its legs firmly rooted in the four corners of the base, and the energetic upward movement of the horse's elongated head and neck, Piccolo cavaliere expresses the theme that culminated in several monumental bronzes of the early 1950s.

 

This intensity of expression in the present work points to the influence of Picasso, whose Guernica (fig. 1) had the most lasting effect on Marini. His post-war series of Horses and Riders and the series of Warriors begun in 1956, owed much to his study of Picasso's masterpiece. The stark, angular shapes of Marini's figures achieve the same striking effect as Picasso's black-and-white palette. The dramatic jolt of the horse's body, its head and neck fully stretched, mimics the pose and expression of the horse in the centre of Guernica, lost in the chaos of the scene.

As the artist himself commented: 'For many centuries, the image of the rider has maintained an epic character. Its object was to pay homage to a conqueror, as, for example, Marcus Aurelius whose statue on the Capitol, inspired the majority of the equestrian statues of the Italian Renaissance, as well as that of Louis XIV, which ornaments the 'Place des Victoires' in Paris. However, the nature of the relations which have existed for so long between men and horses [...] has been greatly changed during the last half century: the horse has been replaced in its economic and military functions by the machine [...]. It has quickly become a sign of luxury. It can even be said that, for the majority of our contemporaries, the horse has acquired a mythical character. [...] With Odilon Redon, Picasso and Chirico, the horse has been transformed into a kind of dream, into a fabulous animal' (quoted in H. Read, P. Waldberg & G. di San Lazzaro, op. cit., p. 491).

 

Apart from its sense of energy, the beauty of the present work lies in the careful rendering of its surface, which shows the artist's painterly attention to finish. Inspired like most Italian artists by antiquity, Marini was drawn not to the refinement of Hellenistic sculpture, but to the rougher, more energetic expression of the Archaic period in Greece and Etruscan sculpture in Italy. Amongst twentieth-century sculptors, Marini was one of the most actively involved in the finishing of his pieces before they left the foundry. By applying various surface marks and paint to his bronzes, he invested them with a sense of immediacy and tactile quality as well as with a jewel-like finish.

 

Of the six bronze casts of the present work, two are in public museums: Nationalgalerie in Berlin and Fondazione Marino Marini in Pistoia.

 

Fig. 1, Pablo Picasso, Guernica (detail), 1937, oil on canvas, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Fig. 2, Marino Marini in his studio