Marino Marini (1901-1980)
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's… Read more TWO BRONZES BY MARINO MARINI The sacred marriage between man and nature was one that Marini believed was under threat from the modern world. ‘The whole history of humanity and nature lies in the figure of the horse and rider in every period,’ Marini wrote. ‘Since my childhood, I have observed these beings, man and horse, and they were for me a question mark. In the beginning there was a ‘harmony’ between them, but in the end, in contrast to this unity, the violent world of the machine arrives, a world which captures it in a dramatic, though no less lively and vitalizing way’ (quoted in M. Marini, Pistoia, 1979, pp. 29-30.) Piccolo cavaliere is one of the series of equine sculptures that Marini executed in the 1940s which use a reductive simplicity of form to celebrate the ancient and sacred relationship between man and horse in the attempt to convey this mystic union as a single, tangible and very material presence. Owing much to the elegant and simple forms of ancient Etruscan sculpture as well as to the modern Etruscan-influenced sculpture of Arturo Martini, many of these 1940s works, including Piccolo cavaliere, deliberately contrast the earthy materiality of the united man/horse figure with a deep sense of spirituality. Marini once observed that the most powerful source for his horse-and-rider image was that of the crowds of people fleeing Milan on horseback before the advancement of the Allied armies at the end of the Second World War. Evidently, the timeless image of the horse and rider impressed itself on Marini as a dramatic and poignant contrast to the collective anonymity and impersonality of a modern mechanized army on the march. In addition, the fact that in their panic and despair, people resorted to this more ancient but more personal, practical and animistic form of transport would also have impressed an artist who considered Etruscan and Egyptian art superior to the more derivative arts of Ancient Rome, the Renaissance and even classical Greece. Executed in 1956, Composizione exhibits the strong emotional power which characterises Marino Marini’s post-war works. One of the most abstract depictions of this theme, with spread legs and its sharp neck stretched to the sky, 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. In Composizione, 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. In its pathos, Composizione 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’ (quoted in M. De Micheli, Una scultura fra natura e storia, pp. 13-22, in M. Marini, Sculture, pitture, disegni dal 1914 al 1977, exh. cat., Venice, 1983, p. 13). PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION
Marino Marini (1901-1980)

Composizione

Details
Marino Marini (1901-1980)
Composizione
stamped with the monogram 'MM' (on the base)
bronze with brown patina hand-painted by the artist
Height: 16½ in. (42 cm.)
Conceived in 1956 and cast in an edition of 8
Provenance
Private collection, Milan, by whom acquired in 2000.
Literature
J. Šetlík, Marini, Prague, 1966, no. 58d. (another cast illustrated).
H. Read, P. Waldberg & G. Di San Lazzaro, Marino Marini, complete works, New York, 1970, no. 338, p. 372 (another cast illustrated p. 374).
C. Pirovano, Marino Marini - Scultore, Milan, 1972, no. 344.
Marino Marini, Japan, 1978, p. 166 (another cast illustrated).
L. Papi, Marino Marini - Impressioni di Lorenzo Papi, Ivrea, 1987.
C. Pirovano, Marino Marini - Catalogo del Museo San Pancrazio di Firenze, Milan, 1988, p. 170 (another cast illustrated pl. 159).
G. Iovane, Marino Marini, Milan, 1990, p. 99.
C. Pirovano, Il Museo Marino Marini a Florence, collezione Guide Artistiche, Milan, 1990, p. 75.
M. Meneguzzo, Marino Marini - Cavalli e cavalieri, Milan, 1997, no. 90, p. 228.
G. Carandente, Marino Marini, Catalogo Ragionato delle Sculture, Milan, 1998, no. 420, p. 291 (another cast illustrated).
Exhibited
Lugano, Galleria Peter Coray, Marino Marini - "gli anni del Ticinio's sculture - disegni, October - December 1981, no. 13 (illustrated).
Special Notice
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

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Antoine Lebouteiller
Antoine Lebouteiller

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The Fondazione Marino Marini has confirmed the authenticity of this work.

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