Passes, the Art of the Bullfight

Book excerpt: In Passes: The Art of Bullfight, art photographer Ricardo Sanchez generously pays homage to Spain's best bullfighters. In page after page of spectacularly colorful and original photography he vividly captures the ballet of the pass. The bullfighter's subtle and precarious dance is revealed in the photographic blur of a speeding half-ton bull, dared and challenged by swirling and swooping capes, just at the critical moment that it passes mere inches from the matador. With an essay from Spain's leading authority and most respected bullfighting critic and an excerpt from Hemmingway's Death in the Afternoon, the work in Passes is poised to join that of legendary artists such as Francisco de Goya and painters Edouard Manet and Pablo Picasso in tribute to bullfighting and the ancient Spanish ritual of the corrida.