Bullfighting Alexandre Lunois

Alexandre Lunois was one of a number of nineteenth-century French painters who took their most important artistic inspiration from their travels abroad. Lunois was attracted by the exotic: He made several trips to West Africa and visited Spain for quite long periods on at least six occasions, fascinated by the everyday characters but more especially by the flamenco dancers, gitanos and bullfighters. In many cases, he painted his compositions in pastels, later producing coloured lithographs of them. The present work was produced as part of a bullfighting series: The picador (a horse-mounted bullfighter), armed with a lance, faces down the bull as it prepares to attack during the first third of the bullfight, the so-called tercio de varas. The task of the picador is to test the strength and spirit of the animal, which he does by repeatedly jabbing at the back of the bull’s neck with his pointed lance. Beside him are the bullring attendants, known as monosabios. A horse bull can be seen in the background, accentuating the defencelessness of the solitary, staring animal in the foreground.

Adriána Lantos