The Agility and Audacity of Juanito Apinani in the ring at Madrid, plate 20 from The Art of Bullfighting
1814/16, published 1816
Medium
Etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image: 20.2 × 30.9 cm (8 × 12 3/16 in.); Plate: 24.6 × 35.5 cm (9 11/16 × 14 in.); Sheet: 32.1 × 44.5 cm (12 11/16 × 17 9/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
123728
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
From 1785 to 1814, the laws regulating bullfighting in Spain were changed four times by succeeding governments. These regulations varied wildly depending on the government’s political bent, ranging from outright prohibition to free admission for all. Due to its politicization, bullfighting became a useful metaphor for societal conflict, which Francisco de Goya employed to obliquely comment on the Spanish body politic. For instance, Goya often pictured the spectators as compositionally divided—ei...
About the Artist
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes · 1746–1828
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was born on March 30, 1746, in the small Aragonese village of Fuendetodos, Spain, to José Benito de Goya, a master gilder, and Gracia de Lucientes. The fourth of six children in a modest lower-middle-class family, Goya received a basic education before beginning his artistic training at age 14 under the local painter José Luzán y Martínez in Zaragoza, where he sp...