"...And
if I was asked what kind of bull, then, I would agree to
bullfight, I would say: give me a bull by Aligi, take to
the tercio a bull by Aligi. I feel I would speak, with
the bulls by Aligi. I feel I would joke with the bulls
by Aligi. Then another question: are the bulls by Aligi
Sassu less Spanish than the bulls by Solana or Vazquez
Diaz? It is not correct. The bulls by Aligi are Spanish
like the other ones, but they are more universal, it is
to say that they are spiritually more accessible to the
human feeling of the non Spanish. Let me talk to the
bulls by Aligi. Their majesty, their gravity, their
eyes, their manners, their "situation" on
earth or in the sky do not seem abnormous to me, even
though I see them as sons of dreams more than sons of an
eugenetic episode. And pay attention to the fact that
the " taurine moment", that is the bull's
assuming, in the split second happening of the fight,
common and immutable attitudes, since all times, to
bullfighting, is identical in the bulls by Aligi and in
all the bulls that a Spanish painter could paint. This
had never happened to a painter of bulls that was not
Spanish. The bulls by Morot, Manet, Worms, Giraud, Rink,
how can I say?, make the wrong moves, but I have never
found in the paintings of bulls by Aligi Sassu, a bull
that was in a non Spanish position. Yet, the bulls by
Sassu do not scare me. Who can take a bull of Aligi to
the tercio for me?" (David,
1967)
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