We can find three main themes in the art of Marino Marini: his Pomona figures, his horses and riders and his portraits. By themes we mean recurring subjects; in fact this Pistoia born artist never changed his subject matter because, as he himself said, "it doesn't matter what it represents but how it is represented".

Marino's best known subjects remain his equestrian groups. They can be considered as his own particular and original way of expressing his personal anxieties and of interpreting reality and history. Marino believed that the rider on the horse represented reasoning and intellect, while the horse instead represented nature and vital energy. If this balance between man and nature were in some way broken, causing the harmony that existed between man and nature's rythm in ancient civilisations to die, then there would be no more peace and the forms would break up to become sharp and tragic; his horses in fact become miracles in the tragic time of the war, refusing to accept men on their backs; instead they want to escape up into the sky, while the rider was forced to stretch up in a desperate attempt to stay on the back of an animal that no longer recognised him or obeyed his commands. With his original revival of such a classical and illustrious theme, the sculptor described his visions and his anguish about the future of the world, changing his earlier heroic conception of life to one that was full of tragedy.

" Marino in fact affirmed:
The entire history of humanity and nature can be found in the figure of the horse and rider, whatever the era. As a child I observed these creatures, the man and the horse, and they puzzled me. At first there
was harmony between them, but then the arrival of the world of machines dramatically captured this unity and, although it was equally alive and stimulating, it came into violent conflict with it.. Thus the sculptor used an original revival of such a classical and illustrious theme to declaim his visions and anguish for the future of man, the future of the world, and changed his heroic conception of life to one that was full of tragedy: a life that was based on what was alive (the horse) and a life that was based on the dying (the rider).

In 1929 Marini went to live a near some crowded and very busy stables in Monza, and drew horse after horse with typically powerful, irrevocable and immediately evocative lines. The horses that he either sculpted or made in clay afterwards - with or without a rider - are recognisable creatures, contained within tight surfaces and created with full, well described yet delicate proportions, one of the secrets of Marini's art. His Pomonas are also gifted with the same gracefullness, each one of them fertile and full of energy, but at the same time emanating dynamicity and speed.

Pomona is the name of the Etruscan goddess of fertility, the symbol of a harmonious and peaceful agricultural countryside. Marino worked on the woman-goddess theme for many years. It is interesting to see however that he did not choose Venus or Diana, but Pomona, a farm divinity who, although she appears to be more woman than goddess, she is also seeped in human mystery. This Pomona woman is warm and sensual, with rounded forms and a fertile womb.

Marino was a wonderful portraitist, in fact, at least a third of his production is composed of portraits. This subject was his way of linking himself with reality and with man. In fact, while all his other subjects were symbolic or visionary, his portraits were a way for him to get close to humanity, allowing him to search for the unique elements and poetry that lie behind each face. Marino not only continuously changed his style to suit the person he was trying to capture in his portraits, but also chose his materials accordingly; we can in fact find portraits in terracotta, bronze, cement, polychrome plaster, silver...

The emotion of colour & Although Marino is best known as a sculptor, he was really a complete artist, as he was a fine draughtsman, graphic artist and, above all, painter. Marino's graphic and painted work
captures the observer for its brilliant colour, which was precisely what inspired all his work, including his sculpture... he was in fact later to say:

There is an extremely close relationship between my painting and my sculpture. I never start a sculpture without first working it out in colour and this is for the following reason: it is virtually impossible to explain how an art work is born because, apart from the difficulties involved, even we artists do not really know. However, when the moment comes, some artists are inspired by a feeling that comes in a descriptive form, while others relate more to a world of colour. I am always inspired by colour, for example. In fact, one particular colour will plague me - it may be red, or blue or even yellow - and therefore I use this colour all the time until inspiration comes. I can thus start by selecting a sheet of paper in this colour and imagining the drawings that will take shape on it. Then these drawings finally come into being, creating a form, until this form then becomes reality ...