ALIGI SASSU
The passion of Sassu for cycling is not only an aesthetic matter of an interesting theme for his paintings, but it comes from the love for a sport that he practices when he is young and follows until the last years of his life.
Bicycle for Sassu is the means that takes him to Florence to study Masolino, Masaccio, and Beato Angelico, from whom he takes inspiration for his Uomini rossi.
Despite the fact that this work looks like a scene from Giro d'Italia, it is actually much more than that: "Certain themes apparently neutral had a moral significance for me. I Ciclisti, for instance: they are the metaphor of an ascetic effort, of a commitment that ends with the victory of the athlete not over the others, but over himself." (Sassu, 1998)