The Dead Toreator

Édouard Manet’s piece titled The Dead Toreador was made in 1864 and is currently located in The National Gallery of Art Museum in Washington, DC. The style of his artwork is realism (representational) and an oil on canvas painting. The painting portrays a fallen bullfighter, lying prone on the floor, his body pointing towards the viewer. Édouard Manet’s oil painting process started with doing sketches and then returning to the studio to complete his painting. Manet painted all at once, with wet layers of oil paint applied on top of existing wet layers, this is called alla prima. His brushstrokes were loose, broad, and quick. They were visible to the eye rather than so finely blended as to be invisible. This artwork is part of the Impressionist
This painting is shown to have a much simpler composition. The colors are very dull with the only hence of color being in the cloth, the man’s skin, and the blood. The shapes are contoured with smooth small brushwork rather than a dark outline. And the light brings attention to the man’s face and chest as it does foreshortening, which brings the figure forward in space. The composition of this piece is asymmetrical as there is much more of the man on the right side than there is on the left. Mainly due to the foreshortening. However, this is balanced out by the similarly sized formed of the cloth on the left. The simple composition makes up for a very dark image. The viewer’s eyes caught by the morbid subject matter on such a large scale; the man is almost life-sized and that makes the Toreador seem like he’s actually in the room. What’s really interesting about this painting is the way Manet decided to depict his subject; the subject matter is handled with great attention with detail and the man’s proportions are accurate and fold of the fabric is very realistic. Manet made the toreador look like he’s in a peaceful rest, but in reality, he dies in a brutal violent