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Lot Essay
'Perhaps it is the tragic feeling of our time that has caused my work to develop in a tragic way' (Marino Marini, 'Thoughts of Marino Marini', pp. 5-11, G. di San Lazzaro, ed., Homage to Marino Marini, New York, n.d., p. 5).
Executed in 1955-56, Composizione (Cavaliere) is a powerful sculpture that explores the dark depths of Marino Marini's hallmark theme, the horse and rider. This equestrian image cuts to the heart of the anxieties that increasingly came to dominate Marini's work, particularly after the traumas of the Second World War. Although Marini had sculpted horses, especially with riders, for many years, in the post-war period the increasing roles that angst and tension were coming to play in these works became ever more evident. Earlier examples sometimes showed the rider in control, man in harmony with his steed. These were often modeled in a reduced yet curvaceous style, the figures an assembly of cylinders, curves and spheres. However, during the 1940s the relationship between the horse and rider became more and more dysfunctional, reflecting the artist's own sense of apocalypse in a world so wantonly destroyed by its inhabitants. More and more, the rider was seen to be losing control, falling from the horse. Marini stated that this in part represented a miracle, the man managing against all odds to remain on the horse. To some extent this miracle was merely the embodiment of Marini's disbelief at mankind's ability to survive, to cling tenuously onto existence in spite of the ongoing rampant destruction of the natural world and the apocalyptic implications of the ever-present atomic threat.
During the 1950s, the increasing brutality of the machine-dominated world and the increasing functionality of modern architecture were reflected in the style of Marini's sculptures. In Composizione (Cavaliere), the rigid lines and geometrical, almost architectural, forms of the legs and body translate a palpable sense of tension and rigidity, transforming it into a far more expressionistic work than many of its predecessors. The edges and volumes are harsh and unnatural, in place of the more fluid and voluminous forms of Marini's earlier sculptures. This also gives both horse and rider a strange skeletal appearance, that expresses the artist's tortured existentialism, as well as striking at the core of Europe's own Post War anxieties.
Executed in 1955-56, Composizione (Cavaliere) is a powerful sculpture that explores the dark depths of Marino Marini's hallmark theme, the horse and rider. This equestrian image cuts to the heart of the anxieties that increasingly came to dominate Marini's work, particularly after the traumas of the Second World War. Although Marini had sculpted horses, especially with riders, for many years, in the post-war period the increasing roles that angst and tension were coming to play in these works became ever more evident. Earlier examples sometimes showed the rider in control, man in harmony with his steed. These were often modeled in a reduced yet curvaceous style, the figures an assembly of cylinders, curves and spheres. However, during the 1940s the relationship between the horse and rider became more and more dysfunctional, reflecting the artist's own sense of apocalypse in a world so wantonly destroyed by its inhabitants. More and more, the rider was seen to be losing control, falling from the horse. Marini stated that this in part represented a miracle, the man managing against all odds to remain on the horse. To some extent this miracle was merely the embodiment of Marini's disbelief at mankind's ability to survive, to cling tenuously onto existence in spite of the ongoing rampant destruction of the natural world and the apocalyptic implications of the ever-present atomic threat.
During the 1950s, the increasing brutality of the machine-dominated world and the increasing functionality of modern architecture were reflected in the style of Marini's sculptures. In Composizione (Cavaliere), the rigid lines and geometrical, almost architectural, forms of the legs and body translate a palpable sense of tension and rigidity, transforming it into a far more expressionistic work than many of its predecessors. The edges and volumes are harsh and unnatural, in place of the more fluid and voluminous forms of Marini's earlier sculptures. This also gives both horse and rider a strange skeletal appearance, that expresses the artist's tortured existentialism, as well as striking at the core of Europe's own Post War anxieties.