Drawing : Goya’s Bullfight Series May 9, 2008
Posted by cantueso in Spain, art, bullfight, drawing.trackback
It is not a sport or a spectacle. The matador does not “win” the fight. It is a ritual culminating in the solemn execution of that wild animal. Hemingway spoke of “grace under pressure” : the matador has to stand still with the animal raging all around him. …………………………………………………………………………………………………
The matador has to tire the bull out. The bull has to lower his head and stand still to be killed. The dance and the play are only to prepare for the moment of truth, the kill, the moment of greatest danger. In his death the bull might throw up its head and wound the matador, in the past often deadly, until Fleming invented penicillin in 1940. …………………………………………………………………………………………………
Normally, in a corrida there are three matadors and six bulls. Each matador kills two bulls that have to be at least four years old. If there is no cheating, things often go wrong even now :
Hemingway said that the bullfight made death look grotesque. Children of course often see it that way.
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Bulls can be herded like cows. They become aggressive only when isolated or kept away from the herd. Even at the ring, when a bull has a limp, he is led out by a cowboy and a few cows.
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Before the fight begins the matador often dedicates a bull to a famous individual who sits in the front row. The statue at the Madrid bullring is a matador who dedicates his bull to Sir Alexander Fleming:
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The drawings are thumbnails from
Noguer-Rizzoli 1974 edition ; the photo of the bulls being herded just like cows is from the blog of Sanchez Dragó. Tourists will mostly be disappointed because a perfect fight is rare and a really really great fight is, maybe, once in a lifetime. So, the chances are you see a lot of clowning or cruelty or bluff, funny or shocking or both.
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……………………………………………..This bull that is sometimes seen watching you from the side of a highway in Spain was originally an ad. It stood for the Osborne wine manufacturers. When those highway advertising boards were prohibited, Osborne’s bull was exempted because of it singular beauty. —
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To many Spaniards the bull is more important than the torero in a fight.
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Don’t you think it ought to be prohibited?
If it were just a tourist industry, but I don’t think it is that way. The city Spaniards don’t care and don’t know, but I am not sure that they are a majority.