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Francisco Goya from the series- Tauromaquia: Los Proverbios: Agility and Audacity of Juanito Apinani in the Ring at Madrid 1816, aquatint/etching, 4th ed 8" x 12.25" |
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Tauromaquia, of The Bullfight, is one of Goya's greatest series
of etchings. It is different from the others, however, because it was published
under his direct supervision before his death. His other series, Los
Caprichos, The Disasters of War, and Los Disparates,
were all controversial in nature, and were not finished in this lifetime.
La
Tauromaquia was based upon a national pastime of Spain, the bullfight,
and was less of a threat to the established institutions. In 1816 the series
of thirty-three etchings was published by Goya himself when he was seventy
years old.
Goya had many reasons for choosing the bullfight as a subject to pursue in printmaking. Goya was a connoisseur of the sport. He attended the bullfight all his life and was reportedly very close in acquaintance with many of the fighters.1 Throughout his artistic career, Goya did 125 paintings, drawings, and prints on the subject of the fight.2 Bullfighting had reached its artistic and technical peak in Spain between the years 1789 and 1805;3 this coincided with one of Goya's most productive periods. The first Spanish print series on bullfighting had been published twenty-five years earlier by Antonio Carnicero.4 His group of twelve etchings had become very popular. Unlike Carnicero's series, however, Goya's prints on the subject were not the traditional view of the bullfighter. In Goya's prints, the bull is often the heroic and noble figure. The humans in the series are depicted in many instances at the moment of death or defeat, whereas the bull is the more intelligent and the more triumphant of the two participants.5 The few human figures who are represented as heroic are not typical either. Most of them exhibit unusual feats of skill and grace. Goya's prints were arranged chronologically as a complete documentary on the bullfight throughout Spanish history. The series begins with the fight's origins in Spain, brought by the Moors. The six plates dedicated to the Moorish contribution relate how they performed the sport on foot in the arena, as it would later be done. The series then turns to represent the Spanish Christians, who took over the sport from the Muslims around the twelfth or thirteenth century. They performed the sport on horseback, and it became a tournament of the nobility. Finally, at the turn of the eighteenth century, the bullfight returned to the commoners, who on foot, brought the bullfight to the artistic and beautiful level that Goya found most appealing.6 Because Goya concentrated on the history of bullfighting, even through its more archaic past, his series was not as popular as Carnicero's, whose prints were easier to understand and more simplistic in intent.7 Number 90 in collection, The Agility and Audacity of Juanito Apiñani in [the ring] at Madrid, as it is known by the commentary, was number twenty in the original series. Like the others, it is similar in composition, based on a horizontal format. Juanito, in one graceful move, is shown vaulting over a bull with the use of a long pole, at feat that made him famous in his lifetime. Some scholars have mentioned this particular print as a good example of Goya's masterful treatment of light and shadow in his etchings. By using the rippling effect of light and dark, Goya has focused the energy upon the pairing of man and bull. By combining their forms in the shadow beneath them, he has joined the two players together in one action.8 In this one moment of "agility and audacity," Goya has captured the intense nature of both human and animal. 1.
Curtis and Holo, 1986, 16.
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