Toreador 

Iosif Iser’s portrait of a Toreador is made with chalk pastel, a medium with its own unique characteristics. The pastels create a soft, textured surface due to the chalky material being lightly layered on the paper. Look closely, and you can see the individual strokes. This contrasts greatly with the smooth finish you’d find in oil paintings. Pastel’s immediacy allows for capturing fleeting moments and emotions. Iser uses this quality well to bring out a lively presence of the toreador. The use of pastels, more accessible and immediate than oil paints, democratized artmaking in the 19th and 20th centuries, making it easier to represent everyday subjects, rather than formally posed elites. The accessibility of pastels connects with the social context of the toreador, a common figure in Spanish culture. Considering the materials and techniques, we see how Iser’s ‘Toreador’ moves beyond a simple depiction of a bullfighter, becoming a reflection of the culture and the democratization of artistic expression.