TOanimals and humans are different species. And, although both have a “soul”, gThe animals remain in a lower, servile dimension, so to speak: the dog, the donkey, the ox. The case of the cat is differentwhose independence is charged with a personality that has original and almost human characteristics: indolence, caprice, freedom.
Man can be cat-like in spirit, autonomy, unpredictability, but never canine. It is also true that among men there are pigs, goats, eagles and crows for various animalistic behaviors.
The only animal that has a dignity equal to man, and never a diminutive condition, is the horse. So much so that the language indicates its excellence, transferring its qualities to men as does not happen to any other animal.
The horse begets the knight, a position of higher rank. Thus the horse increases man’s qualifications, ennobles him. This is also reflected in the art. There are of course cats, dogs, lions, tigers represented; but horses determine an exclusive genus that has a particular place.
In art we think of Donatello, Verrocchio, Francesco Mochi, all the equestrian monuments of the nineteenth century and to artists who chose the horse as an exclusive theme, from Francesco Messina to Marino Marini. For this reason, it is possible that a horse sculptor is not included among genre artists and cannot be considered, like others, an animalist.
Vivianne Duchini: “Roma” (detail), 2021, exhibited in the “Pergola” exhibition (from 28 October to 17 November) at the Etra Studio Tommasi, in Florence (photo by Nicola Gnesi Studio).
The horse has its own human individuality, or personal singularity. It is understood well looking at the bronzes and small bronzes by Vivianne Duchinian Argentine artist who has applied herself extensively, with originality and freedom, to the theme of the horse, managing to capture its independence and aristocratic elegance.
Be they whole or fragments or projects of monuments, Vivianne’s bronzes express not only admiration and respect but also awe. The horse can raise us to knights, or unseat us and live without us, as is his work.
The apotheosis is in the victory of the shaken horse at the Palio of Siena. On that occasion the horses compete and win, not their riders. This nobility is consecrated in the history of art, from Marcus Aurelius to Pisanello’s frescoes.
Elegance, power and performance are exclusive virtues of the horse, who need neither the control nor the assistance of man. This condition is perfectly represented in Vivianne Duchini’s original variations on the horse theme, enhanced in Benvenuto Cellini’s study.
Sometimes Vivianne turns her gaze, returning home after the thrill of free nature, to the domestic animals, and sees, sensitive and submissive, sitting or bent over, the dog is at rest. She doesn’t move, she waits.
It is an emotional relationship, full of sweetness: the dog awaits, in long hours of indecipherable meditation, patient and resigned, in the warmth and silence, for the return of its owner. There is a desire for protection, there is subordination, in his attitude. The dog recognizes and accepts its dependence, asks for affection and intimacy. He is meek and submissive. It shares warmth and smells in the rooms of the house.
It’s the break in a day outdoors in front of the horse that competes and that rises or that fusses with the bird placed on its back. They are moments of pure happiness. The vision of the horse is the dream of freedom. “Ask me to show you poetry in motion, and I will show you a horse,” writes Ben Jonson.
The poster of Vivianne Duchini’s exhibition “Pergola” in Florence
And the great and forgotten poet Raffaele Carrierimy fellow art critic, in The horses leavein the Stellacuore collection, says: «Like bold brown boys/ The horses go away/ To the easy lands of the water/ And they don’t turn to look at me./ No they don’t turn,/ The horses with hearts of silver/ They don’t turn to look at me./ More cheerful of the gypsies/ At the end of a loot/ The horses go away/ Hearing the sea from afar/ Like the gypsies the copper./ The horses go away/ And they don’t turn to look at me./ No they don’t turn./ I horses with hearts of silver/ They don’t turn to look at me.”
INFO: the exhibition Pergola will be, from 28 October to 17 November atEtra Studio Tommasiin Florence.
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