The daring of Martincho in the ring at Saragossa, plate 18 from The Art of Bullfighting

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

Francisco de Goya was an enthusiastic bullfighting aficionado and even claimed to have been a torero (bullfighter) in his younger years. Yet it is unlikely that he meant this print series to be seen only as a fan’s outline of the history of bullfighting in Spain. In the early 19th century, when Goya published these prints, bullfighting was a politically charged activity. It was seen either as bread and circus (or pan y toros [bread and bulls], as a reformist tract put it), meant to keep the populace distracted, or as an expression of Spanish nationalism—a spectacle imbued with patriotic fervor.

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