Corrida in Ronda No. 6, 2008

Eric Fischl made "Corrida in Ronda No. 6" with paint, obviously. But what kind of paint? I wonder if it’s oil on canvas because I imagine him layering and pushing the figures into being. I think he's searching for a scene, the story emerging as he paints, shifting through trial, error, and intuition. Maybe he's thinking about Goya, Manet, or Picasso, who also painted bullfighting. The way the figures are placed within the flattened landscape creates an interesting sense of depth. And there's a tension between the formal, posed figures and the chaotic energy of the bullfight. That gesture, with the outstretched hand offering a hat, is so charged. It holds a formal quality, like a dance. I get the sense that Fischl wants to capture this dance, almost a ritualistic movement. We are all having a conversation in paint. It is an embodied expression that embraces ambiguity, and through this, artists pass on meaning across time, inspiring one another's creativity.