Stierenvechter met banderillas after 1790

Curator: Take a look at this print, an etching and engraving made after 1790, entitled “Stierenvechter met banderillas,” or “Bullfighter with Banderillas.” It resides here at the Rijksmuseum. What are your first impressions? Editor: It feels…stagey? Everyone is posed, even the bull. It’s like they’re all aware of being observed, like a carefully arranged tableau. And the level of detail on the matador's costume, the spectators' hats and gestures…fascinating. There's a restrained tension despite the potential for explosive action. Curator: It’s interesting you use the word "stagey". Let’s consider this print in the broader context of depictions of bullfighting. Arenas have always been inherently performative spaces, but, in the late 18th century, images of the bullfight served to broadcast Spanish identity across Europe, contributing to ideas about heroism, brutality, and national character. So, that awareness, that feeling of being observed that you sensed, it was exactly the point. Editor: So, it’s not just documentation, it’s constructing a narrative. What does that narrative say? What's being emphasized here, and perhaps more subtly, what’s being left unsaid? The blank sky looming large overhead, like a premonition. The figures grouped into discrete sets. Each character playing out a part in something that echoes more broadly about the meaning of the struggle… Curator: Exactly! There's an inherent ambiguity. The banderillas—those barbed darts—have already been placed. There's a certain inevitability about what is about to happen next. Editor: It makes me wonder how we perceive spectacles of violence then versus now. Is this image meant to thrill or to provoke a deeper sense of reflection of the relationship between life and death. Perhaps it is the blankness of it that lends it power—it invites a viewer to imprint upon this scene all their own perceptions and presumptions. Curator: And in that interpretation, maybe it succeeds despite itself, managing to offer something enduring for viewers today. Editor: Agreed. What first seemed overly formal now reveals a more intimate encounter with cultural expectations and personal reflections. Thanks!