Man gespiest aan de hoorn van een stier 1876

This print of a bullfight, ‘Man impaled by the horn of a bull’ was made by Francisco Goya, using etching, aquatint, and drypoint. These are all intaglio processes, meaning the image is incised into a metal plate, here probably copper. Goya would have painstakingly drawn the scene through a waxy ground, bitten the plate with acid, and then added further darks using aquatint - a fine dusting of resin that creates a granular tone when etched - and drypoint, where a sharp needle scratches directly into the metal. The result is a dramatic image, a ballet of skilled labor and mortal risk. Bullfighting in Goya’s time was both a popular entertainment and a highly ritualized display, with its own aesthetic conventions. Goya himself was fascinated with the subject, attracted to its potent mixture of spectacle, violence, and tradition. Prints like this one allowed Goya to disseminate his vision widely, beyond the elite circles of painting commissions. They remind us that art-making is always a form of communication, shaped by available tools and production processes.