← Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)

Plate 15 from "La Tauromaquia": The famous Martincho places the banderillas playing the bull with the movement of his body

Original title: Plate 15 from "La Tauromaquia": The famous Martincho places the banderillas playing the bull with the movement of his body

Artist

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)

Date

1816

Medium

Etching, burnished aquatint, drypoint, burin

Dimensions

Plate: 9 3/4 × 13 7/8 in. (24.7 × 35.2 cm) Sheet: 12 1/16 × 17 1/2 in. (30.6 × 44.5 cm)

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1921

kurzbeschreibung

Unlike the other plates in the series, this 1816 etching does not highlight the moment of the final thrust but an intermediate phase of the fight: the matador Martincho places the banderillas, playing the bull with the movement of his body. Francisco de Goya y Lucientes created the print as part of 'La Tauromaquia', combining etching, drypoint, and aquatint.

Description

Martincho appears in a stance that suggests not a static pose but an imminent turn: both arms are outstretched, each hand holding a banderilla. The bull responds with lowered head and aggressive forward drive. The arena is reduced to a few lines, almost monochrome, while diffuse light from the front brings out the edges of the figures and the shadowed areas. The uneven distribution of the two opponents across the surface propels the tension of the moment; all accessories recede, so that only the encounter between man and animal defines the pictorial space.

Context

Created in 1816, this print belongs to the 33 etchings of the series 'La Tauromaquia', in which Goya takes up the history of Spanish bullfighting. He recorded various techniques and famous bullfighters of his time; Martincho was considered a exponent of particularly risky and acrobatic feats. The series first appeared in 1816 in Madrid and ranks among the artist's last great graphic works.

Impact

An immediate threat emanates from this scene, carried by the unequal arrangement of the figures and the matador's expansive posture. Goya's linework and graduated shading create a tension that draws the viewer into the moment of encounter almost like a cinematic sequence.

Technique

For this plate, Goya used a combination of etching, burnished aquatint, drypoint, and burin. The process allowed him to render the finest details in the figures while achieving soft tonal transitions in the depiction of the arena.

AI-generated description text

Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)