Did Manet's Bullfights Really Change?

Eduoard Manet, A Matador, 1865-1870. Oil on Canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

However, did Manet really go to Spain to only study the works by Spanish masters? Did he really change his presentation of the bullfights? A Matador (1865-1867) appears to follow the Velazquez portrait style with the posed matador saluting in a dark, airy setting, illustrating that maybe the trip reaffirmed his “inclination” toward Spanish technique. However, this work contradicts true Velazquez- type portraits. Manet did use the dark, ambiguous portrait setting, but the matador’s pose does not look as fake or as rigid as the previous espada or majo works. In those works, the characters do not interact with the bullfight; they look at the viewer instead of the bullfight event. In A Matador, Manet catches the matador saluting and interacting with his bullfighting audience, not the viewer. Manet shows the matador as an active character in the bullfight rather than a passive, theatrically posed figure. If this work were created before his visit, Manet may not have felt as passionately about reflecting the interaction of the audience and the bullfighters. Manet had to have been moved by the thrill of the bullfight in the Madrid culture because his works after visiting Spain become more interactive and more insightful. He achieves this intimacy by depicting bullfight in-the-moment-action poses rather than interpretive stances of previous travel accounts of Spain and old Spanish master works. Manet had to visit Spain to derive his own explanations of bullfights and Spanish culture through experience.