1901 Pistoia, Italy
1980 Forte dei Marmi

Horse and rider is a theme with an ancient iconographical tradition
in art, and Marino Marini's treatment of it established his international
reputation in the postwar period. Yet the Italian sculptor neither
celebrated a hero's victory on the model of Marcus Aurelius, nor did
he transform the horse into a kind oF legendary beast, in th.e manner
of Odilon Redon, Pablo Picasso, or Giorgio de Chirico. Malrini wished
to express a tragedy, the collapse of the unity of rider and horse, man
and nature.
Aesthetically, Rider of 1947 in the Museum Ludwig, Cologne,
was influenced by the austere style of Etruscan tombs and archalkc
Roman sculptures. Yet it, too, shows an equinibrium gone awry.
"If you look at rny rider statues of the past twelve years one after the
other," Marini explained, "you will notice that the rider is progressively
less able to control his horse, and that the animal grows ever more
petrified by fear rather than rearing up. I believe - and I am deadly
serious about this - that we are approaching the end of a world..
My rider statues express the anxiety caused by the events
of my epoch." The noble and mythical equestrian monument
dissolves into fear-stricken man and horse, a tragic symbol of a
world in jeopardy. The tectonic, pyrarnidal composition of Lamenting
Norse of 195o leads the eye inexorably to the animal's head. Its
anatomy has been only sumrnarily suggested. The process of
working is still very much evident m the marks of the sculptors
fingers on the surface. Lamenting Horse is a compelling symbol
of the "scream of the tormented creature."
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