The latest chamber exhibition of the Hungarian National Gallery presents the characters, cultural significance and origins of bullfighting through twelve works of art selected from the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition includes antique objects, paintings, sculptures, drawings and engravings, including works by such outstanding artists as Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Francisco de Goya, Ignacio Zuloaga and Fernando Botero.

The tradition of bullfighting, which has always been controversial due to its sheer brutality, has links beyond Spain: it is still practised in southern France, Portugal and several countries of Latin America, while in Italy it was only brought to an end at the beginning of the twentieth century. The artists and writers that visited Spain regarded and captured the most diverse moments of the spectacular struggle between man and his opponent, the wild animal and the bull, as part of exotic folklore. In addition to depicting the painterly nature of the subject, some artists, such as Francisco de Goya, the defining genius of modern art, also expressed social criticism and their thoughts on human nature in their pictures.

The exhibition can be viewed in the chamber hall on the first floor of the Collection of International Art after 1800 and is accompanied by a trilingual catalogue (Hungarian-English-Spanish).

Curator of the exhibition: Adriána Lantos, art historian

The exhibition was supported by the Embassy of Spain in Hungary and the Cervantes Institute.

The exhibition is open until November 12, 2023.

More information: https://en.mng.hu/exhibitions/battling-the-beast-the-bull-in-spanish-and-mediterranean-culture/