馬力諾·馬里尼 | 《小騎士》

萊昂·蘭貝特男爵，布魯塞爾（1970年或之前購入；售出：倫敦佳士得，1987年6月29日，拍品編號61）
私人收藏（購自上述拍賣；售出：紐約佳士得，2014年5月6日，拍品編號39）
現藏家購自上述拍賣

倫敦，羅賓朗與維奧娜畫廊，〈馬里諾·馬里尼：駿馬、騎手與裸女〉，2018年

安布羅·阿波羅尼奧，《雕塑家馬里諾·馬里尼》，米蘭，1958年，圖版94載另一鑄造版本圖

愛德華·特里爾、赫爾穆特·萊德雷爾，《馬里諾·馬里尼》，納沙泰爾，1961年，66-67頁載另一鑄造版本圖

弗蘭克·盧梭里，《馬力諾·馬里尼—油畫與素描》，米蘭，1963年，圖版10載另一鑄造版本圖

伊里·賽特里克，《馬里尼》，布拉格，1966年，品號42，載另一鑄造版本圖

赫伯特·里德、帕特里克·沃爾伯格、伽爾提耶利·迪·聖拉薩羅，《馬力諾·馬里尼：作品全集》，紐約，1970年，品號267，204頁載另一鑄造版本圖，363頁列明現作

卡洛·皮洛瓦諾（編），《雕塑家馬里諾·馬里尼》，米蘭，1973年， 品號273，載另一鑄造版本圖並列明現作

《致敬馬里諾·馬里尼》，巴黎，1974年，34頁

安娜·內澤·辛埃，《馬里尼》，布達佩斯，1977年，品號25，載另一鑄造版本圖

《馬里諾·馬里尼》，日本，1978年，品號112，載另一鑄造版本圖

馬克·梅內古佐，《馬里諾·馬里尼—駿馬與騎手》，米蘭，1997年，品號53，218頁

馬里諾·馬里尼基金會（編），《馬里諾·馬里尼雕塑作品專題目錄》，米蘭，1998年，品號338b，239頁載另一鑄造版本圖

‘Little by little, my horses become more restless, their riders less and less able to control them.’

Marino Marini

 

 

 

Having lived in Switzerland during the second half of the war, Marini returned to Milan in 1946, and immediately started working, developing some of his favourite themes into highly sophisticated and refined images. His role as a leading sculptor on the Italian as well as international scene was reaffirmed at the Venice Biennale of 1948, where he was elected as one of the jury members, and assigned an exhibition room for his work. Discussing his sculpture of this period, Carlo Pirovano wrote:

 

‘When he returned to Milan after the war […], Marino began to work again with great enthusiasm. He seemed to be possessed by an uncontrollable creative drive that expressed itself not so much in the formulation of new themes or the proposal of refined narrative motifs as in the sophisticated formal variation of compositions that were apparently banal and predictable in their subject matter’ (C. Pirovano in Marino Marini, Mitografia (exhibition catalogue), Galleria dello Scudo, Verona, 1994-95, p. 52). Writing about Marini’s horse and rider imagery from this period, Pirovano further observed: ‘The interaction between the two protagonists increased in intensity, with ever-closer links creating interdependence that was emotional rather than merely functional (in the sense of the use of the animal simply as a means of transport). This merging into a single entity accentuated, first and foremost, the metaphorical aspects, while on a formal plane it caused the monocentric equilibrium to slowly deteriorate, leading to a dynamic explosion, with all its excitement and anguish, that was to be the dominant theme of Marino’s work of the Fifties’ (ibid., p. 54).

 

Piccolo cavaliere demonstrates the expressive shift of Marini’s art after the war. No longer satisfied with renderings of stoic figures on horseback, Marini, like many post-war Italian artists, invested his work with an emotional intensity that had not been present in his earlier sculpture. The shift was most pronounced in the Cavalieri series (fig. 1), in which the riders now seemed to freeze with terror or brace themselves for the imminent bucking of their horse. ‘My equestrian figures are symbols of the anguish that I feel when I survey contemporary events,’ Marini wrote about the development of these sculptures. ‘Little by little, my horses become more restless, their riders less and less able to control them.  Man and beast are both overcome by a catastrophe much like those that struck Sodom and Pompeii’ (ibid., p. 60).

The polychrome plaster of Piccolo cavaliere is at the Fondazione Marino Marini in Pistoia. Several bronze casts are in museum collections including Nationalgalerie in Berlin and Fondazione Marino Marini.