Eugenio Lucas Villamil

Villamil, Eugenio
Lucas y Villamil, Eugenio

Spanish, 1858 - 1918

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Two crowds made up of dozens of men each clash on the dirt floor of an outdoor arena in this horizontal painting. The scene is loosely painted and most details are indistinct. Many of the men wear black caps and have peach or brown-colored faces. The group to our left surges near a flagpole. The group to our right eddies around a dark brown bull that stamps front feet firmly on the ground. Both groups are enlivened by swirls of buttercup yellow, scarlet red, powder blue, and bright white. One man wearing white crouches, bare bottomed, on the ground in front of the bull. More people gathered on the far side of the arena and beyond its walls pare painted with strokes and dabs of pearl white, rust red, golden brown, dark gray, ochre yellow, and black.
Eugenio Lucas Villamil, The Bullfight, c. 1890/1900, oil on canvas, Gift of Arthur Sachs, 1954.10.1

The Bullfight

Eugenio Lucas Villamil · c. 1890/1900 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1954.10.1

Bibliography

1981

  • Arnaiz, José Manuel. Eugenio Lucas. Su vida y su obra. Madrid, 1981: 190-207.

1990

  • Brown, Jonathan, and Richard G. Mann. Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1990: 88.