The Bull-Fighter's Salute

The Bullfighter's Salute


The Bull-Fighter's Salute, 1869
Signed, lower right: Fortuny
Oil on canvas/ huile sur toile
61x50.2cm


The bull-fighter salutes the crowd after having killed the bull. This may be a depiction of the bull-ring in Madrid, and the figure could be a portrait. It is one of a small number of scenes of this type executed by the artist and probably originates from one of his trips to Spain in 1867/8 and 1870/2.

The painting was possibly commissioned in Paris in 1869; said to have been painted in 1869. It is probably identifiable as a picture sent by the artist for exhibition and sale in London in 1873.

Mariano Fortuny's paintings video

This video about Mariano Fortuny's paintings was created by Alejandro Cabeza and can be found at You Tube

The Battle of Tetuan

Mariano Fortuny Marsal
The Battle of Tetuan, 1862-1864 Rome
Oil on Canvas/huile sur toile
Size?
Location?
Spanish Orientalist

Thought to be the finest Spanish painter of the nineteenth century after Francisco de Goya, Fortuny occupied a prominent place on the art scene of the period. Educated at the Llotja school, he completed his training in Rome on a grant from the Barcelona City Council, an institution which commissioned various works from him about the intervention of Catalan volunteers in the Spanish-Moroccan War that had broken out in 1859. For that reason Fortuny travelled to Tetuan at the beginning of 1860 and to Tangiers in 1862. The final result of the works in Morocco were a brace of unfinished canvases in which he depicted two of the most important clashes of the African campaign. The first, The Battle of Tetuan, a work of great size and in a format totally inhabitual in the artistic praxis of Fortuny, remained in his Rome studio, where it became a true emblem, until it was acquired on the painter's death in 1874 by the Barcelona Provincial Council. The second, The Battle of Wad-ras, is currently to be found in the Museo del Prado.

The fact that Fortuny did not finish The Battle of Tetuan and that the final result was very uneven and somewhat unhappy demonstrates the lack of motivation of the painter, who became increasingly aware that a history painting conceived within the genre's conventional parameters and characteristic stereotypes was at something of a remove from his painterly aspirations and his creative sensibility. On the other hand, notwithstanding the shortcomings of the staging that a grande machine required, the canvas is strangely compelling, given that it contains a visual poetics which paradoxically converts its compositional heterodoxy into one of the artist's chief attainments and merits.Source: National Museum of Art Catalonia

Children in Japanese Hall

Children in Japanese Hall

Signed Mariano Fortuny Marsal
Children in Japanese Hall
Oil on Canvas/toile sur huile
Size: (44 x 93 cm)
Spanish Orientalist

This painting is without doubt a small jewel. Though, because of its size it might be considered a minor work, it is actually one of his most brilliant. The painter, the first Spaniard to become a trully cosmopolitan artist, enjoyed international fame and earned a large number of commissions throughout his short life. However in this small work -Fortuny was certainly a specialist in small fomats- he wasn't working "on commission". He painted it just a few months before he died, never really finishing it, and is a reflection of his search in the last years of his life to find new roads and outlets for his painting. Thus, while some elements of the scene - such as the girl's leg - are perfectly drawn with meticulous detail, other parts of the painting show such loose, separated brush strokes that one might say that this presages Impressionism. The children in the painting are Mariano and Maria Luisa, the product of his marriage to Cecila Madrazo, the daughter of Federico Madrazo. Source: Prado Museum, Madrid

Arabe Assis

Mariano Fortuny Marsal Arabe Assis
etching and aquatint on paper

Portrait of a Girl

Mariano Fortuny y Marsal
Portrait of a Girl, c. 1860
pencil and watercolor on paper
Spanish Orientalist

An Ecclesiastic, ca. 1874

Signed Fortuny/74
An Ecclesiastic, ca. 1874
oil on panel/huile sur panneau
7 1/2 x 5 1/8 in. (19 x 13 cm)
Spanish Orientalist

The cosmopolitan Catalan painter visited Paris and London and worked at Portici near Naples during the last year of his life. Fortuny y Marsal's late works reflect an interest in light, a distinctive use of color, and an awareness of current international trends, including the influence of Japanese art on the West. Fortuny y Marsal worked closely with colleagues in Spain, France, and Italy. Not only was he a brilliant technician, but he proved to be remarkably receptive to progressive trends. This expressive image of an ecclesiastic in rose-colored robes posed against a vermilion background, demonstrates Fortuny y Marsal's audacious use of color. Source: The Walters Art Museum

Odalisque/Odalisca, 1862

Mariano Fortuny Marsal
Odalisque/Odalisca, 1862
Oil on canvas/huile sur toile
Spanish Orientalist

Books about Mariano Fortuny Marsal

Books about Mariano Fortuny Marsal

1. Fortuny: [Sketches of his life and works by various writers] (Masters in art. A series of illustrated monographs) by Mariano José María Bernardo Fortuny y Marsal (Unknown Binding - 1910)

2. Mariano Fortuny Marsal, Mariano Fortuny Madrazo: Grabados y dibujos (Unknown Binding - 1994)

3. Mariano Fortuny Marsal (Maestros del arte de los siglos XIX y XX) by Carlos Gonzalez (Unknown Binding - 1989)

4. Les orientalistes de l'école espagnole, ARC Edition

A Summer Day, Morocco

Mariano Fortuny Marsal
A Summer Day, Morocco
Oil on canvas/huile sur toile
10 x 25 7/8 inches (25.4 x 66 cm)