An original acrylic painting, on stretched canvas
20 X 16". unframed
( Click on image to enlarge )
People often ask artists and writers why they continue to ponder bullfights and
the bullfighters, as subject matter for their creative works. The questioners probably
hear as many different answers to their quires as the number of famous, or less well
known creative personalities, that they have asked, including Picasso and Hemingway.
But for me, the answer has to be the endless, abstract, visual possibilities of the
dramatic, ceremonial, and ritual costuming. The rich, hand-embroidered gold-work
and gem-encrusted presentations the matadors wear, along with their vibrantly colored
capes, are echoes of our ancient past, going back to ceremonial, human and then animal
sacrifice. And those elaborate appointments still symbolize man against the dark forces
of nature, and the one sacrificial hero who goes out to face death, for the sake of all the
others, as their heroic proxy in the arena.
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