Different approaches to bullfighting [THREAD]

Belmonte and Joselito

Pepe Alameda records that between the legendary professional rivalry between bullfighters Juan Belmonte and José Gómez Ortega "Joselito", there was a radically different approach to the art perfectly encapsulated in their individual styles.

"The Wonder" Joselito was, at his core, a traditional or "natural" bullfighter. Gifted with a deep knowledge of the animal's instincts and character, he had a charismatic personality that eclipsed everyone else. He valued inventive methods, theatrics, and improvisation above all.

Belmonte, on the other hand, was a "changed" bullfighter. Choosing to go away with the traditional ponytail and surround himself with writers and artists, he strived for methodical purification of the plasticity and beauty of the art. He imposed his style on the animal.

Alameda uses Spengler's language when explaining their differences. Joselito was inherently Faustian, open and expansive, a King of Light. Belmonte, Prince of Darkness, "the Earthquake", was Magian, closed and mysterious, an overcoming of what was thought impossible.

Nestor Luján notes:
Until the appearance of Belmonte, bullfighting has been an ornate fight, a festival of the death of the bull. Starting from Belmonte is just a show. Today we are interested in the plastic and emotional purification of a few short hauls, of some crutch passes.

Ernesto Gimenez Caballero's Take

Writer Ernesto Gimenez Caballero, the precursor of Fascism and famous for his eccentric, self-contradictory opinions, discusses the origin and exact significance of bullfighting in a 1931 article for the JONSist newspaper La Conquista del Estado.

Disagreeing with the opinion that bullfighting is a tradition imported from North Africa, he instead states that modern bullfighting is nothing but the cruel twisting of the original 16th century version, artificially manufactured for tourists and the lower classes.

Caballero longs to return to an elitist, almost sacred conception of the bullfight as a noble sacrifice of the bull ritually carried out by the mythical Hispanic übermensch that is the bullfighter. "The bull is the tragic hero of Spain", he says, and "must be bravely sacrificed".

Lastly, I wish to mention Chaves Nogales' wonderful biography "Juan Belmonte, Matador de Toros", one of the reasons for my recent interest in the topic. Written from the first-person of Belmonte and using Nogales' interviews with the man himself, it is an incredible experience.

Belmonte lived in Seville at the break of the 20th century, a semi-rural, colorful and traditional world. Growing up fascinating by adventure novels, he, and many other youths his age, chose to head down a bullfighting path. I will talk about his teenage years.

Belmonte's gang was a diverse group: some aspiring bullfighters, rebellious teenagers, local farmhands, sons of artisans, and even one boy with a liking for bestiality.

Each night they could, they would sneak down south of Seville and swim completely naked to the other side of the Guadalquivir. There, on the Tablada, they would go directly for an aggressive bull that made the area his personal feud.

The teens would provoke him, jump over him, train their bullfighting prowess in the afternoon and under the kiss of the midnight moon. It was here that Belmonte says he received the most important lessons of bullfighting.

To end the thread, enjoy the last stanza of Gerardo Diego's Ode to Belmonte:

I sing to Juan Belmonte and his steeds
galloping with Andalusian bulls
towards the quiet, faithful olive groves,
and –silver of the laurel afternoons−
I sing a -bucolic- suit of lights.

I sincerely hope you were entertained and interested by the topic at hand. I might do a little bit more on bullfighting once I, of course, learn more about it

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