Aligi Sassu - The Coffee of Roses

The painting can be defined as a genre scene, that is, the depiction of an episode of everyday life that, apparently, lacks any significant element. These types of domestic subjects were long considered minor and only began to spread in Western art starting in the 17th century. Only with the development of 19th-century realism did everyday subjects become considered as important as historical or religious ones. The Impressionists, in particular, favored subjects related to modern life in urban, bourgeois settings.

In this work, the anti-naturalistic strains typical of Sassu's style seem less present. Formally, the subjects seem to correspond to a natural truth; rather, the strain seems to be present in the space, which appears compressed to the point of impossibility. The pictorial interpretation is highly dynamic, with color treated almost like a material to be molded. Through this intense and vibrant pictorialism, the composition gains a marked expressionist edge.

Aligi Sassu, born in Milan in 1912, was a painter and sculptor. His painting efforts focused primarily on the representation of movement and physical strength, which is why the subject of the horse or 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 battles.

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