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Lot Essay
Executed in 1957, this work is a lively exploration of one of Picasso's most favoured themes: the corrida. Although he had not returned to his native Spain for decades by the time that he created this vivid image of the bullfight, his sense of nationality had not left him, and he had loved discovering the corrida alive and well in the South of France, where he made his home in the years following the Second World War. While the bullfight had long appeared in his works in one guise or another, including paintings from the turn of the century, it was during this period in particular, at the end of the 1950s, that he created some of his most atmospheric pictures on this theme.
Picasso was enchanted by the spectacle of the bullfight, by its rituals and also by the danger. As was so clear from his own pictures of musketeers, lancers and other virile cavalier characters during the later decades of his life, he was fascinated by machismo, and little encapsulated that quality more than the torero. In Corrida, Picasso has boldly kept much of the surface in reserve, heightening the sense of stillness of this frozen moment of ceremony as the bullfighters and bulls face off against each other, while also perfectly conveying the sun-baked appearance of the arena.
As with the musketeers and other characters, these images of manly valour acted as substitutes for the artist himself, extensions of his own persona, and all the more so as he approached old age. He even saw the process of art-making in corrida-indebted terms, for instance when he said, in a comment that is reflected in the deliberate gesturality the present work: 'To finish an object means to finish it, to destroy it, to rob it of its soul, to give it the puntilla as to a bull in the ring' (Picasso, quoted in M.-L. Bernadac, 'Picasso 1953-1972: Painting as Model', Late Picasso: Paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints 1953-1972, exh. cat., London & Paris, 1988, p. 88). As well as identifying with his Spanish nationality through the ritual and spectacle of the bullfight, Picasso had a long-standing relationship, in artistic terms, with the bull itself; one of the most frequent alter egos through which he represented himself from the 1920s onwards was the Minotaur, half man and half bull.
Picasso was enchanted by the spectacle of the bullfight, by its rituals and also by the danger. As was so clear from his own pictures of musketeers, lancers and other virile cavalier characters during the later decades of his life, he was fascinated by machismo, and little encapsulated that quality more than the torero. In Corrida, Picasso has boldly kept much of the surface in reserve, heightening the sense of stillness of this frozen moment of ceremony as the bullfighters and bulls face off against each other, while also perfectly conveying the sun-baked appearance of the arena.
As with the musketeers and other characters, these images of manly valour acted as substitutes for the artist himself, extensions of his own persona, and all the more so as he approached old age. He even saw the process of art-making in corrida-indebted terms, for instance when he said, in a comment that is reflected in the deliberate gesturality the present work: 'To finish an object means to finish it, to destroy it, to rob it of its soul, to give it the puntilla as to a bull in the ring' (Picasso, quoted in M.-L. Bernadac, 'Picasso 1953-1972: Painting as Model', Late Picasso: Paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints 1953-1972, exh. cat., London & Paris, 1988, p. 88). As well as identifying with his Spanish nationality through the ritual and spectacle of the bullfight, Picasso had a long-standing relationship, in artistic terms, with the bull itself; one of the most frequent alter egos through which he represented himself from the 1920s onwards was the Minotaur, half man and half bull.