La pique

In the years following the Second World War, bullfighting enjoyed something of a revival in Provence and Picasso regularly attended corridas in the Roman arenas still in use in Arles and Nîmes, as well as those in smaller provençal towns. 'On such occasions it was rare not to find Picasso occupying a place in the front row, surrounded by a party of his friends and receiving the ceremonial honours of the fight' (R. Penrose, Picasso: His Life and Work, third edition, Berkeley, 1981, p. 391). Picasso made numerous series of drawings and prints during the 1950s, culminating in his series of aquatints titled La Tauromaquia, which illustrated a text on the art of bullfighting by the famous torero Pepe Illo. This book was published on the occasion of Picasso's 78th birthday on 25 October 1959, and the artist continued to feature the bullfight in paintings, drawings and prints into the next decade.

1960 saw the artist commence an extensive series on the subject of the corrida, exploring all aspects of the spectacle and the grand occasion, as well as the fight itself. The present work is one of five paintings executed between 6 and 8 March depicting the same moment in the bullfight, when the mounted picador weakens the bull for the matador by stabbing it in the shoulder with his lance. Picasso was especially drawn to this aspect of the ritual, the dramatic confrontation of man, horse and bull, and saw a kind of lyrical poetry in the movement and choreography of the spectacle. While the picador's horse rears up, struggling to avoid being gored by the enraged beast, on the right of the canvas the matador himself stands alone, proudly and nonchalantly facing away from the main action, waiting for his moment of glory. Of the five paintings in the series, the present work is the only one in which the matador stands aside from the unfolding drama, creating a pictorial tension between the immobility of this noble figure and the movement of the bull, horse and man.