BULLS, CENTAURS AND ANTHROPOTAURS

Inspired both from the variety of centaurs appeared in art history and by the multiple interpretations of the same subject delivered by Picasso (with Giorgio de Chirico Fiume’s 20th Century favourite artist), Salvatore Fiume was stimulated by the extraordinary richness of forms offered by the centaur to unleash his inexhaustible inventiveness. So, not only did he carry out quite a number of variations on that fascinating theme, but also went as far as to “genetically” modify its nature by inventing the Anthropotaur, a hypothetical mythological hybrid whose upper half is a human, like in the centaur, while the lower half, from equine having become bovine, has the unmistakable features of a bull. Clung to his shoulders, Fiume’s anthropotaur often carries a naked girl accompanying the anthropotaur on bow-and-arrow hunting.