The Death of the Picador

Late in 1792 Goya fell gravely ill, and when he recovered he was permanently deaf. Through 1793, cut off from ordinary conversation, he painted a set of small pictures on tinplate and sent them to the Academy in Madrid, telling them these were works he had made freely, without the rules of a commission. Several, like this one now in Washington, are bullfights. A bull has driven a horn into a mounted picador, horse and rider going down together in a tangle while the rest of the team rushes in. The hard metal support takes the paint in quick thin strokes, and the light falls only on the violence at the centre, leaving the crowd around it in shadow.