the national spectacle of Spain and many Spanish-speaking countries, in which a bull is ceremoniously fought in a sand arena by a matador and usually killed. Bullfighting is also popular in Portugal and southern France, though in the former, where the bull is engaged by a bullfighter on horseback, and in many bullrings in the latter, it is illegal to kill the bull in the arena. A kind of bullfighting is popular in Korea, Japan, and some countries of the Middle East, but this form pits bull against bull. Bloodless bullfights, in which the bull is caped but unharmed and its killing only simulated, are popular in many countries and in several U.S. states, but they are often denigrated by bullfighting traditionalists.

Bullfighting has long generated commentary and controversy. To anthropologists and psychologists, the corrida has signified everything from a confrontation between culture and nature to a symbolic exposition of gender, sexual, or filial relations. In centuries past, clerics assailed bullfighting for degrading the work ethic and diverting public attention away from the church and prayer. Many observers—from Renaissance popes and Bourbon kings to contemporary animal-rights activists—have seen bullfighting as barbaric, as a perversion of the Christian principle of animal stewardship. Others have blamed the spectacle on a debased elite class, which historically held corridas in commemoration of royal weddings and to celebrate the graduation of doctoral students; in the latter case, graduates adorned a wall of their college with the blood of the bull, a tradition that lingers today but in the form of applying red paint, not blood. To still others, blame for the bullfight lies not with a decadent elite but with mass popular culture's taste for bread-and-circuses kinds of entertainment. To many Spanish intellectuals (especially to the Generation of 1898, which grappled with the meaning of the loss of the Spanish empire, and to many intellectuals after the death of Francisco Franco (Franco, Francisco) in 1975), the corrida has been a window into the soul of Spain and its people, an unrelenting reminder of the so-called Spanish “problem”: Spain's supposed rejection of the Enlightenment and the modern world, a refusal to “Europeanize,” which hurts Spain's standing in world opinion and its stature in the European community of civilized nations. The European Union, however, has declared bullfighting a protected activity under the heading of “national culture.”

Bullfighting's defenders are as passionate as its detractors, and they have hailed from all social and economic classes. Jean-Jacques Rousseau credited bullfighting with keeping alive a certain “vigour” in the Spanish people. Other defenders point out that the corrida employs hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and generates much-needed revenue for private charities and state welfare agencies, not unlike the role gambling and lotteries play in many nonbullfighting countries. To still others, bullfighting is but another form of contemporary commercialized mass entertainment—less violent than professional boxing, less injurious than American football, and less cruel to the animal than the ignoble fate that awaits the slaughterhouse steer. Many bullfighters take a more philosophical view and see in the bullring a morality play of sorts, a rare microcosm of the world in its various manifestations. As described by Conchita Cintrón (Cintrón, Conchita), the most acclaimed female bullfighter of modern times,

The classic Spanish type of bullfighting, which this article largely deals with, is often characterized as a sport, but it is not considered as such by its supporters and enthusiasts. While most sporting events value victory over method, in modern bullfighting the method is the essence of the spectacle. Its supporters see it as an art form not unlike ballet but with one major difference. As bullfighting aficionado Ernest Hemingway (Hemingway, Ernest) famously said in Death in the Afternoon (1932), “Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death.”

Six bulls and three bullfighters participate in the traditional bullfight, each matador fighting two bulls; a variation on this is the mano-a-mano bullfight, which is a duel between two matadors, each killing two or three bulls. (Almost every year, in a bravura gesture, a top matador, such as Joselito in years past or El Juli (Juli, El) in the early 21st century, will kill all six bulls.) The bulls are paired and assigned to each matador through a random drawing of lots (el sorteo) by the matadors' assistants on the morning of the late afternoon fights. The bullring is known as the plaza de toros. Bulls used in bullfights are not common meat or milk cattle but a special, distinctly savage breed, which has been bred for centuries for the sole purpose of attacking people in the arena. Mature fighting bulls can weigh as much as 1,300–1,600 pounds (600–700 kg).

The Spanish bullfighting season, la temporada, starts at the end of March and continues until early October. The top bullfighters then go to Lima for the monthlong Peruvian season before heading to Mexico City in December and January. The aspirants, los novilleros, perform in Mexico only in the summer, whereas in Spain they perform from March to October.

Combats and spectacles with bulls were also common in ancient Rome, but the action depended on the inherent trait of domesticated cattle to flee their attackers. The distinguishing trait of the Iberian stock used in bullfighting as it is known today is its spirited and continuous attack without provocation. Prior to the Punic Wars, the Celtiberians knew the peculiarities of the wild cattle that inhabited their forests. They developed the hunt into a game and herded the animals for use as an auxiliary in war, where advantage was taken of the animals' ferocity. For example, the Celtiberian defenders of a city besieged by Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal's father, in 228 BC gathered a great herd of wild horned beasts, harnessed them to wagons loaded with resinous wood lit with torches, and drove the herd at the enemy. (The Moors later adopted a similar strategy, except they tied firebrands to the animals' tails to initiate the stampede.) In the ensuing melee Barca was killed and his army annihilated. Carthaginians and Romans were astounded by accounts of Barca's demise. They were equally amazed at subsequent tales of games held in Baetica (the Spanish region of Andalusia) in which men exhibited dexterity and valour before dealing the death blow with ax or lance to a wild horned beast. The Iberians were reported to have used skins or cloaks (precursors to the cape) to avoid the repeated attacks of the bulls before killing them.

This description is less surprising when one remembers that the early church's foremost rival was the cult of Mithra (Mithraism), the pagan god of Persian mythology that was widely worshipped in ancient Rome. The most important Mithraic ceremony was the sacrifice of a bull, an act emulating Mithra's legendary slaying of a bull, which was depicted in art throughout the Roman Empire.

For 600 years the bullfighting spectacle consisted of a mounted aristocrat armed with a lance. During the reign of Philip IV (1621–65), the lance was discarded in favour of the rejoncillo (short spear), and leg armour was introduced to protect the mounted bullfighters. As knowledge of the nobles' prowess spread beyond their domains, they were invited to competitive jousts in provincial tournaments. However, the nobles' performance was hampered by their unfamiliarity with the spirit of bulls from other areas, causing their lackeys (assistants on foot)—who daringly maneuvered the bulls by dragging capes before the animals—to gain greater experience and fame. Further changing the character of bullfighting was the secession of the house of Bourbon, which rose to power in Spain with Philip V (1700–46) and which disapproved of bullfighting. But while the aristocracy gradually abandoned bullfighting, the public enthusiastically continued the spectacle. Any nobles still bullfighting now performed on foot and relegated to their former foot assistants the subordinate role on horseback, that of picador (whose exact role is discussed later).

By the 18th century, bullfighting's popularity had grown sufficiently to make bull breeding (animal breeding) financially profitable, and herds were bred for specific characteristics. In fact, many of the royal houses of Europe competed to present the fiercest specimens in the ring. The lack of a spirited native stock of bulls is one reason why corridas never fully took root in Italy and France.

One of the greatest of the early professional bullfighters was Joaquín Rodríguez Costillares (born in Sevilla in 1729). Known as the father of modern (foot-based) bullfighting, Costillares is credited with creating the pomp and pageantry associated with the modern, commercialized corrida, including the basic cape pass called the veronica, the matador's tradition of wearing an elaborately embroidered costume, and the most common method of killing the bull—the volapié, in which the bull is transfixed by the cape held low to the ground while the bullfighter lunges forward (as the bull charges) and with the right hand plunges the sword between the bull's shoulder blades. Costillares's rival was Pedro Romero of Ronda in Andalusia, who reputedly killed 5,600 bulls during a 28-year career and popularized use of the estoque, the sword still used in the kill, and the muleta, the small red flannel cloth draped over a 22-inch (56-cm) stick that forms the small cape used in the bullfight's final act. Romero was famous for executing the more dangerous, dramatic, and difficult of the two methods of killing the bull—the recibiendo, in which the matador stands still and receives the charging bull on the sword. These men represent the two classic “schools” of bullfighting, the Ronda school noted for a simpler, more sober approach to the corrida when compared with the more flamboyant style popular in Sevilla.

In all these early corridas, the kill was the pivotal point of the spectacle, and if the kill could be executed after only a few cape passes, so much the better. This changed over time, and the matador's ability to work the bull, to master the animal, and to exhibit the graceful arte de torero began to be appreciated as much as, if not more than, the actual kill. (Juan Belmonte (Belmonte, Juan), whose career extended from 1910 to 1935, was largely responsible for this transformation.)

It was about this time, in the late 18th century, that painter Francisco de Goya (Goya, Francisco de) (1746–1828), who had sketched scores of bullfighting scenes in his La tauromaquia series, designed a distinctive professional uniform for bullfighters (worn only on commemorative gala occasions in Goya-style corridas, or corridas goyescas). Performers also began using a net to hold back their shoulder-length hair (hairdressing), later tying it in a knot at the base of the skull for protection in falls when they were tossed by the bull. This hairstyle later developed into the satin-covered semispherical cork headpiece and short queue, or pigtail, which became the distinguishing mark of the profession. A kind of pigtail was the caste mark of gladiators who fought bulls in the Colosseum of ancient Rome, and it is often emulated today by this false braid (coleta) worn by contemporary bullfighters. (A matador retiring is still said to be “cutting the pigtail.”)

After the introduction of railways, the plazas de toros in Spain, Portugal, and Latin America (where the conquistadores introduced corridas in the early 1500s) greatly multiplied. In fact, long before football (soccer) and baseball stadiums were built, bullrings had become a staple of Spanish and Latin American life. The corridas in the New World served many purposes. For some they were a training ground for novice bullfighters and matadors of the second rank; for others to this day they are a source of lucrative contracts during the Spanish off-season (November through February).

Along with the expansion of the corrida around the world came increased concern about fan behaviour. Although exhibiting nothing like the hooliganism often associated with contemporary football fans, bullfighting crowds could historically be volatile. Their reputation for rowdiness was such that, in the 19th century, regulations were often passed to prohibit the throwing of fruit, sticks, stones—even dead animals—into the ring. Certain crowd behaviour, in fact, is commonly associated with certain bullrings. According to the stereotypes, the crowds in Sevilla are refined and sophisticated, sometimes unnervingly quiet, concerned above all with the aesthetic of the spectacle; in Madrid they are serious, severe, and critical, allowing for few musical interludes by the corrida bands and as demanding of a clean kill as of a graceful cape pass; and in Bilbao and Pamplona they are festive, raucous, and unpredictable.

While football remains the most popular spectator sport on the Iberian Peninsula and in Latin America, bullfighting continues to draw considerable crowds, despite the organized campaigns to ban it. In 1996, for example, some 40 million spectators attended bullfights and bull-related festivals. There was a record 650 fights in Spain, in which some 3,900 bulls were killed, and the Spanish public spent some 160 billion pesetas (U.S. $1.4 billion) to watch the corridas that year; bullfighting employed 200,000 people, more than 1 percent of the workforce. Corridas in Mexico, however, have suffered a decline in recent decades, and there is growing intolerance of bullfighting in the Catalonia area of Spain.

Partly because of tourism and television (in Spain and many Latin American countries, numerous bullfights are televised each week), there are actually many more corridas today than in Hemingway's era. An interesting anomaly is the small but ardent group of English, French, and American aficionados. There are several bullfighting clubs (peñas) in Great Britain and a dozen in the United States who meet regularly, show films, review videotaped corridas, contribute taurine items to their Web sites and newsletters, and organize trips to Mexico, Spain, France, and Latin America to see their favourite matadors perform.

Successful bullfighters perform more than 100 times a season and become highly paid media stars. A case in point at the end of the 20th century was the popular Julián López Escobar, called El Juli (Juli, El), a Spaniard born in 1982 who began his professional career at age 15. At that young age the prodigy was awarded ears and tail (an honour discussed below) in Mexico City's arena, and he had become the highest-paid matador in history by 2000, at age 17. Though severely gored several times, he continued his career on the Iberian Peninsula and in Latin America.

Perceptions of bulls are often culturally circumscribed. North Americans, some say, are too urbanized, suburbanized, and alienated from the ancient association of the bull with the divine to appreciate the animal's many virtues, which is why, in English, semantic associations involving bulls tend to be negative, signifying only the brutish and the coarse. Spanish and Latin American cultures, on the other hand, still revere the animal for his grace, agility, and controlled strength.

As ganaderos (bull breeders) like to say, “Bulls get their size and build from their fathers, but their hearts come from their mothers.” The bulls used in corridas are invariably of pedigreed lineage raised on special ranches (ganaderías), the most celebrated being those of Miura, from Sevilla, which have killed more famous matadors, including the great Manolete, than any others. Shortly after weaning, vaccinating, and branding, the yearling males are tested in the open fields, and only those displaying the proper ferocity are retained for future corridas. Some of remarkable pedigree and fine physical construction are separated and later put through a series of tests—by mounted men, never by bullfighters on foot with capes—designed to prove the animal's bravery. If acceptable, such bulls are then used exclusively for the arena; if not, they are sent to the slaughterhouse. At two to three years the heifers are tested in a small ring at the ranch through all phases of the corrida, and only those deemed acceptable are kept for breeding; those rejected are also sent to the slaughterhouse. Royalty used to attend these tests (tientas), which often became social events. During a tienta a ranch may test scores of animals over the course of several days, during which novice or retired bullfighters might perform with young breeding cows, star matadors might practice new maneuvers, and amateur matadors and members of the literati might test their courage in the ring, usually with heifers. Many matadors have been seriously wounded by heifers that were little more than calves. The great Antonio Bienvenida, for example, was killed by a small heifer on his ranch in 1975.

Bulls are never used a second time in the corrida. This is because their memory is remarkable, and former experience would make subsequent fights too dangerous for the matadors to execute their graceful capework, which is the main reason fans come to the arena.

All cattle are colour-blind. The colour red has been adopted for the muleta (the small cape used in the bullfight's final act) since it minimizes the appearance of blood and other stains and produces a more colourful spectacle; the front of the large work cape (or capote, used in the first act of the bullfight) is magenta and the inside yellow or blue, and the bulls charge either colour just as readily as they do the red muleta. (It is motion that provokes the bull's charge.) Like racehorses, all fighting bulls are named, generally taking the name of their mother; e.g., the mother of Islero (the bull that killed Manolete) was Islera.

Professional bullfighters, called toreros (they are famously called toreadors in Bizet's opera Carmen, a word that harkens back to the days of mounted bullfighters), consist of the picadors, the mounted assistants with pike poles who lance the bull in the bullfight's first act; the banderilleros, the assistants on foot who execute the initial capework and place the barbed darts (banderillas) into the bull in the second act; and of course the matadors, who work the bull and eventually kill it in the bullfight's final act. Six bulls are usually killed during each corrida; three matadors, whose cuadrillas (team of assistants) consist of two or three banderilleros and two picadors, alternate in the performance according to seniority in the profession (the most senior matador taking the first and the fourth bull).

Bullfighters must pass through a trying novitiate as novilleros (novices)—training first as becerristas (fighting two-year-old animals), then as novilleros sin picadores (fighting two- and three-year-old bulls without picadors), and finally as novilleros with picadors—before receiving the alternativa, the ceremony in which the senior matador confers on the novice professional status and acceptance as a professional equal, capable of dispatching any bull properly. These rules apply equally to the distaff side; female bullfighters (called matadoras (matador) or toreras, though some of them resent being called by the feminine form of the noun and would prefer to be called, like male bullfighters, toreros or matadors) have been around since antiquity, though very few have performed with distinction for very long. Should a bull prove cowardly or damaged or should a matador in a mano-a-mano match be gored or incapacitated, substitute bulls and matadors (both are called sobresalientes) are at the ready. Prior to 1974 in Spain, when female bullfighters were not allowed to dismount and kill the bull on foot, a sobresaliente would be called in at the end of the fight to finish off the bull, much to the disappointment and disgust of many toreras such as Conchita Cintrón, who long sought the same opportunities afforded her male counterparts.

Female bullfighters have long generated comment. Some toreros and bullfighting aficionados have never accepted them, seeing them as mere novelties at best or as trespassers on a sacred male domain at worst; from this perspective, the women should stick to their traditional role in the corrida, that of “beautiful spectator.” In fact, some critics of bullfighting hold toreras in special disdain. Some say the young attractive bullfighters, such as Cristina Sánchez, who in 1996 became the first woman to have taken her alternativa in Europe and who made her debut as a full matador in Spain, are responsible for breathing new life into a supposedly moribund institution. However, others have long welcomed matadoras and judged them accordingly on their merits as bullfighters.

What motivates many young bullfighters, whether male or female, to pick up the cape is the same vision of fame and fortune that motivates budding athletes the world over. And for the lucky few who make it, great wealth and adulation await them. Babe Ruth was often called the highest-paid athlete of his day, but, as Adrian Shubert points out in Death and Money in the Afternoon: A History of the Spanish Bullfight (1999), his salary paled in comparison to what Spanish bullfighters were then earning. One multiple-fight performance in Lima in the 1920s earned a star matador as much as Ruth made in an entire year.

Like any other commercialized venture generating great wealth and prestige, bullfighting has had its share of scandal. Bribes and payoffs for this favour or that—among bullfighters, breeders, promoters, agents, and critics—as well as horn-shaving scandals (shortened horns can give an advantage to the matador), indiscriminate breeding (thus weakening certain stocks), the drugging of bulls, and the gorging of bulls on grain (thus giving them weight but assuring their weakness in strength and stamina) are among the kinds of malfeasance that have shadowed bullfighting's long history. Exploding banderillas (the barbed darts placed in the animal's withers during the second act of the corrida) were once routinely used to spark ferocity in bulls, but these were, not surprisingly, the target of much outrage by bullfighting critics as well as aficionados concerned about cruelty to animals and thus are no longer employed.

Because bullfights traditionally begin in the late afternoon, spectators must choose between seats in the sun (sol) and those more-expensive seats in the shade (sombra). Seats in areas getting both sun and shade at different points in the bullfight may be sold as sol y sombra. The most expensive tickets are the barrera de sombra, meaning those in the first row on the shady side of the ring. The front rows are often populated by family and friends of the bullfighters and by fashionable members of the privileged class, for whom certain corridas and fiestas are important dates on their social calendar. According to Hemingway (Hemingway, Ernest), the best seat for the novice was one

The other critical element, he stressed, was the sun.

A single bullfight, which typically lasts about 20 minutes, is often described as “a tragedy in three acts.” These acts (called tercios) principally consist of picadors, banderilleros, and the matador's killing of the bull. In actuality, there are six separate and required phases to a bullfight: the opening capework, the lancing by the picadors, the flashy and graceful passes with the large cape, the placing of the banderillas, the dangerous passes with the muleta, and finally the kill.

After the alguaciles return to the gate, the corrida band begins a dramatic paso doble, and the opening procession (paseo) begins. The mounted bailiffs are followed into the ring by the matadors and their banderilleros and picadors. The matadors wear the traje de luces, or suit of lights, consisting of a short jacket, a waistcoat, and knee-length skintight trousers of silk and satin, richly beaded and embroidered in gold, silver, or coloured silk (the trousers are skintight so no folds or drapes may be caught on the bull's horns); a dress cape of satin, heavily embroidered in gold, silver, and silk, worn only during the opening procession; a white shirt and narrow black or red tie; heavy coral-pink silk stockings; flat, heelless black slippers; and a montera, a knobbed hat made of tiny black silk chenille balls hand-sewn in special designs on heavy buckram. The dressing of a matador is a solemn ritual, one laden with tradition and superstition; it is considered an honour to be invited to the dressing, which usually occurs an hour or so before the late afternoon fights.

The banderilleros wear similar garments, lacking only the gold embroidery, which is reserved exclusively for the matadors. Picadors wear broad-brimmed, low-crowned, heavy, beige-coloured hats called castoreños, jackets and waistcoats similar to those of the matadors but not as ornate, leg armour covered by tightly fitting trousers of heavy cream-coloured chamois, and heavily protected chamois ankle boots. The picadors' horses wear protective pads of compressed thick cotton encased in leather and canvas.

After the opening procession has crossed the arena, the presiding official throws down to one of the bailiffs the key to the gate of the toril, or bull pen. The bullfighters go behind the barrera (the 5-foot- 【1.5-metre-】 high wooden wall encircling the ring), and the matador performing with this bull moves behind one of the burladeros (the wooden shields positioned just in front of the four openings in the perimeter wall where the bullfighter can slide behind and take refuge but the bull cannot). A trumpet signals the opening of the toril gate. As the bull rushes out of the gate and into the arena, an attendant perched above jabs into the bull's shoulder a silken rosette with the colours of the ranch where the bull was bred.

This wait for the bull to enter the arena is often the most anxious for the matador, a time when the matador will perhaps silently say a prayer for a good bull, one that charges straight and at the cloth. This first act of the bullfight is the part of the spectacle when the bull has the best opportunity to show his bravery—or cowardice—and the manner in which the animal enters the ring often (but not always) foreshadows the character of the fight to come. Enclosed in the dark pen since midday, the typical bull upon the unlocking of the toril will bolt directly for the opening at the end of the tunnel connecting the pen to the arena and explode thunderously into the light of the afternoon. A bull that stops suddenly upon entering the ring and, bewildered by his new environment (yet another enclosure), attempts to escape back through the still-open gate might mean a tame or cowardly bull (a manso) is on hand; manso bulls can make for an ignoble performance and pose a great danger to the matador, for the bull's movements are erratic and difficult for the bullfighter to gauge. (Better a ferocious bull on the offensive with bold, predictable charges than a cowardly and defensive bull with unclear intentions.) A bull that bellows, shakes its head, and paws the sand, though looking ferocious to the uninitiated, often is a manso.

In the first act, one of the matador's banderilleros runs into the ring and attracts the bull's attention with shouts and a large cape. A brave bull will instinctively rush the target, whereupon the banderillero runs backward toward the perimeter fence and, at the last second, narrowly evades the charging animal by ducking behind a burladero, at which point the bull either turns and circles the arena or smashes into (and sometimes through) the wooden planks of the shield. A second banderillero then appears, lures the bull to the other side of the ring, and conducts some basic cape passes with the bull far from the horns. These initial charges of the bull are very important to the matador assigned to this bull, who watches the action from behind a burladero and observes the bull's fighting characteristics and temperament. Does the bull execute long, smooth charges, or does he buck and twist dangerously toward the banderillero as he passes? Does the bull show a marked preference in the use of either horn, or does he attack equally from both sides? Does the bull appear to have bad vision, which could signal an inability to follow the path of the cape and mean a greater possibility of the animal twisting and turning in a dangerous fashion as it reacts to different stimuli, such as noises from the crowd? And where is the bull's querencia, that part of the ring (perhaps a cool, damp section of the ring) where the bull feels most comfortable and charges most dangerously to get to and defend?

After these passes are conducted by the banderilleros on each side of the arena, the matador then steps into the ring with the large colourful cape, usually performing the basic two-handed veronica (named after St. Veronica, who, according to Christian legend, wiped Christ's brow with a cloth as he passed by on his way to Golgotha). The veronica is the basic pass from which nearly all other passes derive. A series of veronicas is usually ended with a media-verónica, in which the full swing of the cape is cut short by the matador, forcing the bull to turn quickly and bringing it to a stop. A matador wanting to make a dramatic entry might begin with a spectacular farol de rodillas, in which he darts in front of the bull, drops to his knees, and, when the animal charges, swings the cape over and around his own head; this, of course, is dangerous, because the horns are on a level with the matador's cheek and head. In either case, the matador's objective is the same: to work, with feet and legs still and with grace and composure, as close to the bull's horns as possible, gradually controlling the wild charges of the enormous beast and molding them into a choreographed work of art. Inferior matadors will slide their feet back as the animal nears and try to trick the audience by leaning into the bull after the animal's horns have passed, making it look as though they are closer to the bull than they really are. Likewise, cowardly matadors will sidestep the horns as they go in for the kill instead of bravely diving over them as they plant the sword. Some matadors may also make a relatively easy pass look much more dangerous by leading the bull directly toward his querencia; in reality the bull is not fiercely aiming for his adversary but simply trying to get to his favourite spot in the arena. This is derisively called “taking advantage of the trip.” Each good pass of the bull is enthusiastically acknowledged by the crowd with a rhythmically chanted ¡Olé! (which is said to be a corruption of the word Allah, a holdover from the Moorish roots of bullfighting).

After the bull makes three forceful charges of the horse, the matador assigned to this bull will rush into the ring, attracting the bull's attention away from the picadors with cape passes called quites (from the Spanish verb “to take away”). Each of the three matadors then capes the bull, competing against one another in a series of passes performed as gracefully as possible, taking turns in order of seniority (the matador assigned to this bull coming first, the others following in turn). It is the time in the fight when one sees the varied flashy passes with the big colourful cape. Among these passes are the gaonera, in which the cape is held behind the matador's body, and the chicuelina, in which the bullfighter spins in against the bull's charge; these maneuvers were invented, respectively, by the Mexican Rodolfo Gaona and by the Spaniard Manuel Jiménez, known as “Chicuelo.” The rebolera is a finishing flourish to the passes in which the cape is swirled around the bullfighter's waist like a dancer's dress. If beautifully executed, a variation of this last maneuver (the serpentina) transfixes the bull in place, at which point the bullfighter can actually turn his back on the animal and walk away.

Another trumpet call signals the third and final tercio, the faena, a term for the many passes with the muleta and the bull. This involves the matador alone, the banderilleros usually being behind the barrera, ready to assist in case the matador is gored or tossed. The matador takes a position below the president's box and, with the montera held aloft in the right hand, folded muleta and sword in the left, formally requests permission to dedicate (brindar) the bull to some person or friend, to whom the montera is tossed. A bullfighter may also dedicate the kill to the general public, signified by doffing the hat to the crowd, turning full circle, and then tossing the montera over the shoulder to the ground. Superstitious bullfighters take special note whether the hat lands up or down, for a montera that lands upside down could mean that it will soon be filled with the bullfighter's blood.

Though the bull's charges in this final act are slower due to his weakened state, the bull is no less dangerous and the situation no less perilous for the bullfighter. The matador must now perform dangerously close passes with the bull to prove complete mastery of the animal. The matador uses only the small cape, the crimson muleta, which may be spread wider with the sword than when supported solely by the stick. Such passes with the smaller form of the muleta are considered more meritorious for the matador to perform since the bull is offered a smaller target; similarly, matadors who perform with the bull in the centre of the ring are considered braver and more skillful than those who fight the animal alongside the perimeter, near the fence and exits, since they are farther away from help should they be gored or tossed.

As the excitement of the crowd grows with each additional pass of the bull, the bullfighter prepares for the kill and the fight's denouement. Most interesting can be how a matador deals with a bull that refuses to leave its querencia, that area of the ring where it feels emboldened and which it considers a safe haven. As Ernest Hemingway (Hemingway, Ernest) wrote,

Some matadors, before killing the bull, may demonstrate their complete mastery of the animal by executing an adorno, performing an “ornamentation,” a superfluous flourish, that can range from turning one's back on the bull, kneeling confidently in front of the animal, kissing the bull's head, or even hanging a hat on the bull's horns. (Arruza (Arruza, Carlos) would lean an elbow on the bull and pretend to call him on the phone.) These theatrics vary, and, while dangerous and dramatic, they are considered by some matadors and purists to be an affront to the dignity of their adversary.

The killing of the bull is done either volapié or recibiendo, the former being much more common and the latter rarely done because of the great precision and courage required to execute it (see above). At no time is the matador permitted to touch or hurt the bull with the sword except for the final kill. Improper conduct on the part of any torero during a corrida may result in heavy fines or incarceration or both. Now comes the hora de verdad, the “moment of truth,” so called because, while it is not too difficult to kill a bull any which way, to do it properly takes great skill and courage, and the audiences know the difference.

After the sword is thrust and the bull is down, another torero (the puntillero) will ensure the animal's death by a jab of a small knife (puntilla) behind the bull's head. Meanwhile, the matador, if acclaimed, circles the arena with the banderilleros to the applause of the spectators and then returns to the person honoured by the brindis (dedication) to retrieve the montera, which invariably is returned with the promise of a gift, which might range from a small amount of money to a present such as cuff links. If the performance was very good, the matador receives, as a token of popular esteem, one ear of the bull. If it was superb, the bullfighter receives two ears. But if the performance was spectacular, the bullfighter receives both ears and the tail. If the bull had battled bravely before his death, the crowd may petition the president (by waving white handkerchiefs) for the bull to be given a vuelta (lap) around the ring. The bull is then dragged once around the ring by a team of horses to the applause of the crowd and to the satisfaction of the bull's breeder, who views this as a great honour. If the bull was exceptionally brave, the audience may petition the president to spare the bull's life; if a rare pardon (indulto) is granted, it is indicated by the president waving an orange handkerchief. The kill, in these rare instances, is simulated using a banderilla or an empty hand, and the bull is then put out to stud.

After a bull is killed, the carcass is dragged from the arena, quartered, and dressed. Sometimes the bull's meat is given to the poor, but usually it is sold right at the plaza de toros. Then the ring is raked over, the next bull is introduced, and the spectacle begins anew.

The traditional bullfight—that “dance with death” which has been called “indefensible but irresistible”—has long captured the attention and imagination of painters, novelists, poets, photographers, sculptors, and cinematographers. The Spaniard Francisco de Goya (Goya, Francisco de) was the first major painter to record the spectacle artistically and in all its aspects. Goya was an amateur torero himself, and his La tauromaquia series of etchings (1815–16) show what the corrida looked like in the early 19th century. One of his masterpieces depicts two spirited bullfights, divided by a fence, taking place in the Madrid bullring.

Sculptors (sculpture) such as Mariano Benlliure (from Spain) and Humberto Peraza (from Mexico) have also been drawn to bullfighting themes. A superb example of Benlliure's work can be seen in the graveyard at Sevilla where, depicted in bronze, are 12 life-size figures carrying the open coffin of the great Joselito, who was killed by a bull in 1920. Peraza's enormous bronze bulls and matadors can be seen outside the arenas in Mexico City and Tijuana, Mexico.

Bullfighting is at the heart of one of the most beloved operas, Georges Bizet's Carmen (1875). The opera is based on Prosper Mérimée's 1846 novella of a spirited girl from Sevilla and her bullfighter lover. If the traditional female role in bullfighting has been that of “beautiful spectator” as depicted in classic bullfighting posters, it is that of grief-stricken wife, suffering mother, or femme fatale in much bullfighting fiction. In fact, according to literary convention, the brave, Byronic protagonist is often seduced to his peril by the wiles of a beautiful woman. Some critics see this as an ironic twist, considering the matador can be viewed as playing a similar female role with the bull in the ring, teasing and seducing the male animal to its death. Henry de Montherlant (Montherlant, Henry de)'s Les Bestiaires (1926; The Bullfighters) also deals with the matador's ever-present threat of death in the ring.

In English there are few books that truly reflect or understand the spectacle. One of the first to do so faithfully was Frank Harris's Montes the Matador and Other Stories (1900). But the first truly accurate, comprehensive, and unblinking overview of bullfighting in English—and certainly the most influential—was Ernest Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon (1932). It is in this nonfiction work that Hemingway opines why so few Americans and Englishmen become matadors:

Hemingway also included bullfighting scenes in his novels The Sun Also Rises (1926) and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), and his last major literary work, The Dangerous Summer (1960), was an account of the rivalry between two great matadors, Dominguín and his brother-in-law, Antonio Ordóñez (Ordóñez, Antonio) (who was the son of the bullfighter who inspired the character in The Sun Also Rises). Hemingway's short story "The Capital of the World" (1936) was turned into a ballet of the same name in 1953. The plot of the story and ballet revolves around the young, idealistic Paco, who goes to Madrid to become a matador but grows disillusioned with his discovery of the seamier side of the bullfighting industry; he dies after being gored by an artificial bull, a chair with knives fixed as horns. Two additional American novels help explain the spectacle to English-speaking readers: Tom Lea's The Brave Bulls (1949) and Barnaby Conrad's Matador (1952), the former about a Mexican matador and the latter about a doomed Spaniard.

Most Hollywood films, such as Eddie Cantor's The Kid from Spain (1932) and Walt Disney's short subject Ferdinand the Bull (1938), portray matadors as egocentric and comic figures instead of practitioners of what is perhaps the most demanding and dangerous profession in the world. One of the best bullfighting films ever made is Budd Boetticher's Bullfighter and the Lady (1951), which sparked great interest in bullfighting in the United States. Boetticher himself was an amateur torero and produced several other bullfighting films. Award-winning director Pedro Almodóvar has also made films involving bullfighting, including Matador (1986), which was roundly criticized in Spain for its negative portrayal of the corrida, and Hable con ella (2002; Talk to Her), which deals with, among other things, the relationship between a female bullfighter and her lover. In art as in society, bullfighting's “dance with death” sparks commentary, controversy, and endless interpretation.