Make way for bulls and wind

Original Language TitleAl Toro y al Aire Darles Calle

Series TitleLos Proverbios

Former TitleThe Rain of the Bulls

Artist Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746 - 1828)

Date1877

MediumEtching and aquatint

DimensionsPlate: 8 1/4 × 12 3/4 inches (20.96 × 32.39 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number33-145

Edition/State/Proof1st ed.

On View

Not on view

Collections

Prints

Terms

Exhibition History

Spanish Exhibition, Philbrook Museum, Tulsa, OK, 1940.

Animalia, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 28-June 18, 2015, no cat., as Rain of Bulls.

Gallery Label

Goya was fascinated by the powerful form of the bull, which he treated repeatedly throughout his career. Here he represents a group of tumbling bulls, descending almost like rain (as in the title) in a black vacuum. The print highlights Goya’s gift for expressing complex anatomical form through chiaroscuro, or strong contrasts of light and dark. Goya’s work often offered stinging social or political critique, but this print seems to focus above all on the energy and force of nature. Goya also treated the theme of the bullfight, a central part of Spanish culture, in several other prints.

Provenance

With Alden Galleries, Kansas City, MO, by May 19, 1933;

Purchased from Alden Galleries by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1933.

Published References

A collection of catalogs, vol. 1, Spanish Exhibition (Tulsa, OK: Philbrook Art Center, 1940).

Tomás Harris, Goya Engravings and Lithographs (Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, 1964), 1: p. 198; 2: no. 269, p. 407, (repro.), as [Al Toro y al aire darles calle] (Make way for bulls and wind); [Disparate de Tontos (or Toritos)] (Fools’—or Little Bulls’—folly).

Pierre Gassier and Juliet Wilson-Bareau, The Life and Complete Work of Francisco Goya, 2nd ed. (New York: Harrison House, 1981), no. 1604, pp. 311, 322, 326, (repro.), as Disparate de Tontos (Fools’ Folly).

Alfonso E. Pérez-Sánchez and Julián Gállego, Goya: The Complete Etchings and Lithographs (Munich: Prestel, 1995), no. 22, p. 197, (repro.), as Fools’ fantasy.

George L. McKenna, Prints, 1460-1995 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 314, (repro.), as Additional plates for Los Proverbios: Al Toro y al Aire Darles Calle (Make way for bulls and wind).

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