Aligi Sassu - Untitled - SALB001

The depiction of animals in art has ancient origins, even appearing in primitive cave paintings. For religious reasons, various types of animals appear in the works of various ancient civilizations. It was especially in the Middle Ages, within the International Gothic style, that animal depictions became widespread as true life portraits, both within works of art and in notebooks of drawings and sketches. The presence of animals as subjects in art remained constant until the contemporary era. Much of Aligi Sassu's production, especially his graphic works, focuses on the figure of the horse. A noble animal, a symbol of beauty and harmony, the horse has repeatedly been a prominent subject in the history of art. Since the fourteenth century, its presence has always been obligatory in battle scenes or equestrian monuments, and for painters, depicting it with anatomical precision and naturalistic rendering has always been a challenge.

This work is a striking example of Aligi Sassu's pictorial and graphic production, which, while remaining figurative, adopts anti-naturalistic forms. Here too, we note how the subjects are characterized by expressive deformations that accentuate their dynamism and physical effort. All the lines of the composition are designed to convey to the viewer a sense of frenetic movement and strength. The choice of color also serves this purpose, which, in turn, does not respect natural truth but is used expressively, with an absolute predominance of red. In this case, the work in question represents something of a rarity precisely because of the agreed-upon preference for a bright blue in the dynamic depiction of the steeds.

Aligi Sassu, born in Milan in 1912 and died in 2000, was a painter and sculptor. His painting focused primarily on the representation of movement and physical strength, which is why the subject of a man on horseback was always congenial to him. In the late 1970s, he and Bruno Munari drafted the pictorial manifesto "Dynamism and Muscular Reform," which called for a return to anti-naturalistic forms in a dynamic sense. Much of his painting, moreover, is inspired by Delacroix and his struggles.

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