Manet traveled to Spain not only to study the great Spanish masters, but to witness the Spanish bullfight. His transition from forcefully blocking characters in bullfight scenes to recreating fiery life or death moments represents a break away from trying to appease the Salon. Experiencing bullfighting in Spain instead of copying scenes from literature and previous works, Manet physically learned to interpret the world around him through his own eyes. This improved, audience-engaging style can be seen in other post-Spain works like in his Races at Longchamp (1867). Manet believed that his trip gave him “enormous hope and courage" (qtd. Wilson- Bareau 234), to become his own artist. Manet’s Spanish motif waned during the 1870s but returned again toward the end of his life. However, his departure from only creating “pastiches” of old masters to developing his own Spanish works paved the way for future artists to separate their styles from old masters. Manet learned from depicting traditional bullfights the importance of displaying personal experience and ideas. His lesson embodied the ideals of Baudelaire's "painter of modern life" stressing the importance of modernity to his contemporaries and pupils. The modernity of depicting life "in the momenet" became the thread that strung the later Impressionist group together. Therefore, Manet's bullfights represented a triumph for cultural tradition and a triumph for artistic modernity.
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(Left) Eduoard Manet. Races at Longchamp, c. 1867. Oil on Canvas. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.
(Right) Eduoard Manet. The Bullfight, 1865. Watercolor. Getty Museum, New York.