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Lot Essay
John Minton’s interest in arid settings, strewn with a few rocks and stones, had begun in 1933, while painting in Provence at Les Baux, an ancient ruined town on top of a rocky outcrop. His interest in ruin scenes may have been further enriched by his awareness of the devastation wreaked in Spain by its Civil War. In 1939, again in Provence, he watched for the first time an actual bullfight, and, after the Luftwaffe attacks on London began in the spring of 1941, he often wandered around the London docklands, especially the area of Poplar that had been very hard hit.
In The Bullfighter the setting looks imaginative, a suitable site for Minton’s poetic melancholy. It offers an extravagantly morbid plateau, pervaded by a sense of ending. The marks on the wall in the middle distance suggest that an execution has taken place. The nearby pot is broken, and in bottom right is a horse’s skull. Above it, close to the bullfighter, is a butterfly which traditionally symbolises the soul. The bullfighter raises himself on one arm and clutches his head with the other. It is as if we are witnessing his final cry against an unjust world.
We are very grateful to Frances Spalding for preparing this catalogue entry.
In The Bullfighter the setting looks imaginative, a suitable site for Minton’s poetic melancholy. It offers an extravagantly morbid plateau, pervaded by a sense of ending. The marks on the wall in the middle distance suggest that an execution has taken place. The nearby pot is broken, and in bottom right is a horse’s skull. Above it, close to the bullfighter, is a butterfly which traditionally symbolises the soul. The bullfighter raises himself on one arm and clutches his head with the other. It is as if we are witnessing his final cry against an unjust world.
We are very grateful to Frances Spalding for preparing this catalogue entry.