Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway

Bullfight

As a casual spectator of rugby, American football, boxing, kick boxing, and mixed martial arts, I quickly concluded that these are probably the most brutal sports and the most intense forms of competition since the risk of injury to the participant is high and sometimes accidental death is the end result.  Ernest Hemingway’s, “Death in the Afternoon,” shed new light on the subject of brutality and high risk for me. He describes, "the head, the tail, the whole damn thing," and all the details of the killing and death. 

I have never attended an event that places a willing person in an arena with a red cape and a sword to challenge a 1500 pound animal with raw power that is driven by high octane testosterone, to a game of death. The closest event to a bullfight that I have personally witnessed are rodeos, where grown men are whipped around in circles, tossed about like rag dolls, trampled to the dirt, and kicked by the iron hooves by enraged bulls. It takes bull size "cajones" for a man to muster up enough courage to step into a ring on a bull’s terms. In spite of the dangers, rodeos still fall short by several notches by the intensity of the challenge as compared to a bullfight. I've painted this subject not because I was inspired by Ernest Hemingway but instead for my own catharsis of purging the images that were burnt into my imagination by his words.

Faena

Pase' Doble' - A dance that uses the movements of the bull and the matador