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Lot Essay
Executed in 1954, Cavaliere expresses the strong emotional power which characterizes Marino Marini's post-war works. The sculpture portrays a horse and rider in a scene of intense emotion, as the horse pulls the weight of its body backwards, arching its back beneath the rider. The expressiveness of the forms brings a sense of urgency and drama, bypassing literal, naturalistic representation and tapping into the complex psychological world of modern man.
Throughout his career, Marini explored the figure of the horse in a number of variations of forms and meanings. At times paired with a rider, at times alone, the motif appears renewed each time. In Cavaliere, Marini has created a sculpture clearly informed by architecture, resulting in a balance of stasis and movement. In its striking pose, this work articulates a moment of condensed energy, in which all the parts are still, yet almost trembling with the potential of an imminent explosion. While the hooves solidly anchor this creature to the ground, its arched back adds impetus to the pose. Marini's treatment of the form in Cavaliere bestows a psychological and emotional dimension onto the animal: the horse responds to its surroundings with visceral, human emotion.
Cavaliere 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. “The horse, at a certain point, falls, and the rider is lost, as in the 1954 Miracle. I would say that we are at the stage of a still-human tragedy. Later, tragedy is there, but it is not so mundane. It is now the tragedy of a fossil, of a scorched element that rebuilds itself: the element returns to become architecturally structural…” (Marino Marini, quoted in M. Marini, S. Hunter and D. Finn, op. cit., p. 101).
Throughout his career, Marini explored the figure of the horse in a number of variations of forms and meanings. At times paired with a rider, at times alone, the motif appears renewed each time. In Cavaliere, Marini has created a sculpture clearly informed by architecture, resulting in a balance of stasis and movement. In its striking pose, this work articulates a moment of condensed energy, in which all the parts are still, yet almost trembling with the potential of an imminent explosion. While the hooves solidly anchor this creature to the ground, its arched back adds impetus to the pose. Marini's treatment of the form in Cavaliere bestows a psychological and emotional dimension onto the animal: the horse responds to its surroundings with visceral, human emotion.
Cavaliere 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. “The horse, at a certain point, falls, and the rider is lost, as in the 1954 Miracle. I would say that we are at the stage of a still-human tragedy. Later, tragedy is there, but it is not so mundane. It is now the tragedy of a fossil, of a scorched element that rebuilds itself: the element returns to become architecturally structural…” (Marino Marini, quoted in M. Marini, S. Hunter and D. Finn, op. cit., p. 101).