Marino Marini

One of my favorite artists, I can hardley begin to explain why I love Marini. There is something so incredible about his work, so free and freeing to see. Sexual yet innocent at the same time. It reminds me of children being naked on the beach; no shame in their exhibitsionism. But then again, the sexual themes that I'm sure Freud would have picked out with ease of the man and horse are so obvious I almost feel stupid saying it. 
But I think there is something deeper in Marini's work than pure sex/beastiality which is so easy to interpret. It's something that makes a man with a massive erection on horseback with his arms spread out beautiful, rather than weird. It makes you smile, and makes you feel liberated rather than sexual or disturbed.

Where I first saw Marini : at the Guggenhiem in Venice

" It is very difficult to explain how exactly a work of art is born. In fact, it is almost inexplicable, but at a certain moment an emotion falls upon an artist and for some artists this feeling arrives in a descriptive form, while for others in a world of color. In my case the emotion arrives in color. For example, I have a color that torments me.. let's take perhaps a red, a blue, a yellow - this color continually invades my mind until I begin to put this color onto paper and imagine this color becoming a drawing. Then, all of the sudden, this drawing begins to take form, the form, and this form becomes true form."

The Angel of the City 1948

Susana 1943

Horse and Rider 1947

Horseman 1947

Juggler 1953

 Marini also had his roots in painting, and prepared for sculptures by drawing, which I respect a lot, and alone they are works of art too;

Horse and Juggler 1953

Juggler and Two Horses, Blue, Yellow and Black 1953

Marini was inspired by Etruscan art (from Nothern Italy between 9th-2nd C BC) and you can see the connection he made with these ancient peoples;

Perhaps he got his very male sexual freedom from Greek images such as these

Here are two from the Marini museum in Florence;

The Great war

Walking Woman