The dead toreador

A Spanish matador lies stretched across the canvas, his body flat against a shadowy, empty background. Edouard Manet painted this scene in 1864, dressing his fallen figure in the sharp black costume and crisp white shirt of the bullring. A thin trail of blood near his hand hints at what happened, yet his face looks strangely calm, almost as if he were only sleeping. Your eye slides naturally from his shiny black shoes down to his peaceful head.

The story behind this painting is stranger than the scene itself. It began as part of a much bigger picture showing a crowded bullfight, but critics laughed at it, saying the figures looked clumsy and oddly sized. Stung by the mockery, Manet simply took a blade to his own canvas and cut it apart, keeping this single fallen man as a finished work on its own. The gamble paid off, since the stripped-down design highlights his knack for bold, flat blocks of color and strong contrast, the very qualities that would soon shape the Impressionists.

Manet had a deep love of Spanish painting, and the influence of Diego Velázquez shows in the dark, muted tones and the quiet respect he grants his subject. Instead of the noise and danger of the arena, he gives us the silence that follows, leaving the rest of the tale for us to fill in.