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Lot Essay
The Marino Marini Foundation has confirmed the authenticity of this sculpture.
Executed in 1950, Cavallo expresses the strong emotional power which characterises Marino Marini's post-war works. With spread legs and its neck stretched to the sky, Cavallo portrays a horse in a scene of intense emotion, as it pulls its neck backwards, its mouth open in a silent scream. The expressiveness of the forms brings a sense of urgency and drama to the work, bypassing literal, naturalistic representation and tapping into the complex psychological world of modern man.
Throughout his whole career, Marino Marini explored the figure of the horse in a number of variations of forms and meanings. At times paired with a rider, at times - as in Cavallo - alone, the motif appears renewed each time. In Cavallo Marini has created a sculpture clearly informed by architecture, resulting in a balance of stasis and movement. In its striking pose, the work articulates a moment of condensed energy, in which all the parts are still, yet almost tremble with the potential of an imminent explosion. While the hooves solidly anchor this creature on the floor, its elongated neck adds impetus to the pose, as if the animal were trying to free itself of its own weight. Marini's treatment of the form in Cavallo bestows a psychological and emotional dimension onto the animal: the horse responds to its surroundings with visceral, human emotion, raising its eyes to the sky as if it were searching for a spiritual answer.
In its pathos, Cavallo bears the signs of Marini's post-war production, expressing the artist's conviction that the world had lost, after the conflict, all sense of serenity and perfect beauty. 'Today', the artist declared, 'I am without a doubt an expressionist sculptor. But today the world itself is all expressionist: a restless world, open to an anxiety which propels itself in weaves from a perturbed epicentre (...) A beautiful thing, such as a sculpture by Canova, has been transformed into a terrifying and dramatic form' (M. Marini in 1972, quoted in M. De Micheli, 'Una scultura fra natura e storia', pp. 13-22, in Marino Marini, Sculture, pitture, disegni dal 1914 al 1977, exh. cat., Venice, 1983, p. 13).
Executed in 1950, Cavallo expresses the strong emotional power which characterises Marino Marini's post-war works. With spread legs and its neck stretched to the sky, Cavallo portrays a horse in a scene of intense emotion, as it pulls its neck backwards, its mouth open in a silent scream. The expressiveness of the forms brings a sense of urgency and drama to the work, bypassing literal, naturalistic representation and tapping into the complex psychological world of modern man.
Throughout his whole career, Marino Marini explored the figure of the horse in a number of variations of forms and meanings. At times paired with a rider, at times - as in Cavallo - alone, the motif appears renewed each time. In Cavallo Marini has created a sculpture clearly informed by architecture, resulting in a balance of stasis and movement. In its striking pose, the work articulates a moment of condensed energy, in which all the parts are still, yet almost tremble with the potential of an imminent explosion. While the hooves solidly anchor this creature on the floor, its elongated neck adds impetus to the pose, as if the animal were trying to free itself of its own weight. Marini's treatment of the form in Cavallo bestows a psychological and emotional dimension onto the animal: the horse responds to its surroundings with visceral, human emotion, raising its eyes to the sky as if it were searching for a spiritual answer.
In its pathos, Cavallo bears the signs of Marini's post-war production, expressing the artist's conviction that the world had lost, after the conflict, all sense of serenity and perfect beauty. 'Today', the artist declared, 'I am without a doubt an expressionist sculptor. But today the world itself is all expressionist: a restless world, open to an anxiety which propels itself in weaves from a perturbed epicentre (...) A beautiful thing, such as a sculpture by Canova, has been transformed into a terrifying and dramatic form' (M. Marini in 1972, quoted in M. De Micheli, 'Una scultura fra natura e storia', pp. 13-22, in Marino Marini, Sculture, pitture, disegni dal 1914 al 1977, exh. cat., Venice, 1983, p. 13).