The Hallucinogenic Toreador

The Hallucinogenic Toreador (Spanish: El Torero Alucinógeno) is a 1969–1970 multi-leveled oil painting by Salvador Dalí which employs the canons of his particular interpretation of surrealist thought.

The entire scene is contained within a bullfighting ring, submerged under a barrage of red and yellow tones, alluding tentatively to the colors of the Spanish flag.

This rectangular-shaped burst of colors immediately grasps the viewer's attention and steers it down towards the visibly emerging shape of a dying bull's head (probably Islero), dripping blood and saliva from its mouth.

[1] The gadflies of Saint Narcissus of Gerona[2] march over the arena in seemingly straight and parallel lines, forming the cap, hairnet and cape of the toreador.

When the painting was exhibited in a New York City gallery in the late 1960s as a work in progress, it was accompanied by an illustration of the design, matting out the areas not relevant to the Toreador so that he was easier to see.