Gladiators 1932

Rafael Zabaleta made this painting "Gladiators" with oil on canvas, but the date is unknown. The whole scene has this really interesting, dreamlike quality, heightened by the way he’s applied these chalky colors. It feels like he's building up the image from a sketch. Look at the gladiator standing, with the spear raised – you can see the graininess, the way the paint seems to sit on the surface. It reminds me of fresco, in a way, like the color has seeped into the plaster. Then there's the figure of the fallen gladiator, all splayed out. There’s something kind of tender about how Zabaleta renders his body, despite the violence of the scene, with this sort of chalky, almost loving touch. I see echoes of artists like José Clemente Orozco in his figures, that kind of solid, sculptural treatment of the body. But Zabaleta brings his own twist, focusing on the materiality of the paint itself. It's like he's inviting us to think about the act of painting as much as the subject matter.