Marino Marini

Marino Marini’s images of circus performers, acrobats and jugglers are characterised by a mixture of playfulness and pathos. Here, the figures of the horse and of the two performers are captured in a series of quick brushstrokes and sharp angles that emphasise their dexterity. Echoing the images of harlequins and circus performers found in Picasso’s Rose period paintings, the theme of performance was also associated in Marini’s mind with ancient celebrations and festivals, rites that linked the present with the beginnings of civilisation. One of Marini’s earliest inspirations had been the statuettes of the T’ang Dynasty, delicately coloured figurines of dancers and musicians. As with his famous image of the horse and rider, the figures here have the distinctive timeless quality Marini looked for in all his work.

In the present painting, each of the figures is coloured in a different palette, silhouetted against the background with a strong black line. The overlapping layers of paint give the surface the variety of texture similar to that found in Marini’s sculpture of the same period. Fascinated by the richness of oil painting and the freedom it gave him, the artist himself commented: ‘Painting is a vision of colour. Painting means entertaining the poetry of fact; and in the process of its making the fact becomes true. In colour, I looked for the beginning of each new idea. Whether one should call it painting or drawing, I do not know’ (quoted in Sam Hunter, Marino Marini, The Sculpture, New York, 1993, p. 37).