The Bulls of Bordeaux

Because of this repression Goya moved to France, though to retain his position and salary as court painter he lodged a formal request for six months leave to go to the spa at Plombières-les-Bains, eventually settling in Bordeaux where he would spend the rest of his life.

"[1] In Bordeaux Goya no longer took commissions, but painted his friends, made a series of watercolour miniatures on ivory, continued to fill his sketchbooks and experimented with lithography.

The crayon was then brought back into play to reinforce the shadows and accents, or to indicate figures and give them a sense of movement... You might laugh if I said that all Goya's lithographs were executed with a magnifying glass.

The third print, Dibersión de España, shows the beginning of a fiesta when the bulls run free and foolhardy amateurs charge the ring.

In Plaza Partida, Goya uses multiple focal points to re-create the visual stimulation that would have been experienced by a witness to the spectacle of a divided arena.