Bullfight. Wounded Picador

Mariano Fortuny is one of the most important artists of the Spanish 19th century. Despite his premature death, he produced a body of work that presented an innovative visual proposal, possessing great modernity for its time and marking the evolution of painting at the end of the century.

This canvas is an outstanding example of his style characterized by loose, free, and expressive brushstrokes, where the dab of color serves as the primary compositional resource.

Beneath the picador's horse, which laboriously attempts to repel the charging bull, a cloud of dust conveys a vivid sense of movement and the animal's struggle to avoid being dragged, reinforcing the tension perceived in the rider's posture.

The spectator perceives the drama of the moment with the same intensity as its protagonists—a fleeting instant captured in full detail by the painter.

Fortuny was a great enthusiast of bullfighting. He used to attend fights in Madrid accompanied by his brother-in-law, the fellow painter Raimundo de Madrazo, who was the brother of his wife Cecilia and a close friend.

However, bullfighting themes also appear in his work because of the artistic possibilities they offered to explore movement and expressiveness through a free and gestural brushstroke, inheriting the tradition of Goya, the great interpreter of bullfighting themes in Spanish painting.

Following a tragic incident, a wounded picador is removed from the arena by two assistants. Fortuny made several preliminary sketches of this group of figures; thus, although the work conveys a spontaneous, almost frenetic impression, it is actually the result of deliberate labor.

The vast number of the artist's surviving drawings bears witness to his creative process—a careful study of each composition—while simultaneously showcasing his extraordinary skill and fertile creativity.

In the inventory taken upon the painter's death in 1874, this work was recorded as "Episode of a bullfight, unfinished painting." In any case, it is difficult to determine if it is truly an unfinished work, as the appearance of some parts of the canvas seems to suggest.

Or perhaps the artist deliberately left some areas of the canvas uncovered once the desired compositional and artistic effects were achieved. This was by no means unusual in a style of painting like Fortuny's, which was preoccupied with the expressiveness of color and brushwork.

The figure of the bullfighter climbing the barrier was initially in a different location, as revealed by this "pentimento"—a form the artist intended to erase that remains visible.

His posture is identical, but Fortuny ultimately decided to place him next to the group of the wounded picador. The cloud of sand beneath the white bull's feet also hides and disguises several rectifications in the animal's posture.

In the stands, Fortuny dissolves forms, turning the spectators of the bullfight into a shapeless mass of dark color, taking the loose brushwork that Goya had also used to represent crowds to its ultimate conclusion.

The surroundings are completely blurred, reaching the point of abstraction, while the viewer's attention focuses on the busy activity of the picadors and bullfighters, enveloped in a tangle of capes and rapid movements that intensify the drama of the narrated episode.

Although somewhat blurred, one can still see the stamp with the artist's surname that was placed on all the assets (including artworks of his own creation) remaining in his studio on Via Flaminia in Rome after his sudden death on November 21, 1874.

Fortuny died without having made a will, necessitating a detailed count of all his properties for the transfer to his heirs. The work, appraised in Rome at 330 francs, was sold in Paris for 4,100 francs at the famous Hôtel Drouot auction house in 1875.