The corrida de toros is a traditional spectacle in which a bullfighter confronts and kills a fighting bull in an arena, the plaza de toros. It is deeply tied to Spain's history and imagery but is also the subject of heated debate today. Here we explain its history and workings without hiding the opposing views.
History
Games with bulls are very old in the Mediterranean. In medieval and Renaissance Spain nobles faced bulls on horseback during festivals. In the eighteenth century, when the Bourbons distanced the aristocracy from these games, bullfighting on foot emerged, practised by professionals of humble origin such as Pedro Romero of Ronda and Costillares of Seville, who set the modern rules. The great stone bullrings were built: Ronda (1785), one of the oldest, and the Real Maestranza in Seville.
How it works
In a traditional corrida three matadors face six bulls, two each. Each fight has three phases, the tercios:
- the tercio de varas, in which mounted picadores wound the bull in the neck with a lance;
- the tercio de banderillas, in which banderilleros plant pairs of decorated sticks in its back;
- the tercio de muerte, in which the matador, with the red muleta, performs a series of passes and finally kills the bull with the sword (estocada).
The president of the ring can reward the bullfighter with the bull's ears or tail. There is also rejoneo, bullfighting on horseback, and novilladas, with young bulls and novice bullfighters. Fighting bulls are a breed raised free-range on the dehesas of Andalusia, Castile and Extremadura.
Bullrings and season
The season runs from March to October. The most important bullrings are Las Ventas in Madrid, in Neo-Mudéjar style, home of the San Isidro Fair in May-June, the Real Maestranza in Seville, during the April Fair, and the rings of Pamplona, Valencia, Bilbao and Málaga. During San Fermín in Pamplona the encierros, the bull runs through the streets, take place.
In art and literature
Bullfighting inspired artists such as Goya, with his Tauromaquia etchings, Manet and Picasso; poets such as García Lorca, with his Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías; and writers such as Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, with Blood and Sand, and Ernest Hemingway, with The Sun Also Rises and Death in the Afternoon.
The debate
In recent decades bullfighting audiences have fallen, especially among the young, and animal-rights groups call for abolition, seeing it as animal cruelty. The Canary Islands effectively banned bullfighting in 1991, through an animal protection law; Catalonia abolished bullfighting in 2010: the Constitutional Court overturned the ban in 2016, but no bullfights have been held in Barcelona since. A 2013 law recognised bullfighting as cultural heritage, and several communities, such as Madrid and Andalusia, defend and support it. Its supporters consider it an art and a ritual that is part of Spanish culture, and stress the economic and ecological role of the ranches. Many popular festivals also include bull events without killing, such as recortes and the Valencian bous al carrer. Travellers in Spain can freely choose whether or not to attend; certainly, it is one of the issues that reveal most about Spain and its contradictions.