The Bullfight

Manet painted this bullfight scene in 1865, after a trip to Spain in August of that year. He had gone to Spain to see the paintings of Velazquez in the Prado, and while he was there he attended several bullfights. A bull stands in the center of the ring, its head lowered. A horse lies dead on the ground, its belly exposed. Picadors and chulos on horseback move around the bull. The crowd is visible in the background, a band of color above the wooden barrier. The canvas is small, roughly 19 by 24 inches, landscape format. The colors are warm: the yellow sand of the ring, the red of the bull, the dark coats of the horses. Manet painted several bullfight scenes in 1865 and 1866. This version is in the Art Institute of Chicago. A larger version, called Episode from a Bullfight, was exhibited at the Salon of 1866 and was badly received. Manet cut it up after the exhibition, and the surviving fragments are now in the Musee d'Orsay and the National Gallery in London. French painting of the 1860s was deeply influenced by Spanish art. Manet had been looking at Velazquez and Goya since the late 1850s, and his trip to Spain in 1865 confirmed his admiration. The bullfight paintings are a direct product of that trip. They were controversial in Paris because they showed a violent subject without moralizing, and because they were painted in a flat, direct style that broke with academic conventions. Oil on canvas, 48 by 60.4 centimeters. Manet painted with a warm, earthy palette, building the scene in broad strokes of yellow, red, and brown. The bull is painted in heavy, dark strokes, the dead horse in lighter tones of grey and pink. The crowd is a thin band of color, with no individual figures. This painting works in a living room, study, or dining room. The warm palette and dramatic subject suit a room with earth tones, wood furniture, or red accents. The 16x20 framed version in a red oak frame complements the colors. The painting is in the Art Institute of Chicago, accession number 1937.1019. This is a public domain artwork, sourced from Wikimedia Commons. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 24x36 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.