Do the Spanish give a particular name to those 'statues' of bulls that can be seen along the Costa Blanca?

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jims_pc

The Osborne's bull is a 14 meters high black silhouetted image of a bull in semi-profile, and is regarded as the unofficial national symbol of Spain.

The Osborne sherry company erected large images of bulls starting in 1956, in black with the maker's name, as advertising boardings on sites near to major roads throughout Spain. The original image was smaller and in a slightly different design. It got bigger as a law barred publicity within 150 meters of a road.

Later on a new law was passed in 1994, this time prohibiting such advertising, and so the boardings were to be removed. By this time the signs were nationally renowned, so although some campaigners wished them completely removed to fully comply with the intent of the law, public response resulted in the signs being retained, but completely blacked out to remove all reference to the original advertisers. The Court eventually allowed these signs to remain on the grounds that it has become a part of the landscape where it is present and its "aesthetic or cultural significance" thus turning it into a figure of public domain.

There are now only two signs in Spain with the word "Osborne" still written on them. One is at the Jerez de la Frontera airport in the province of Cadiz, and the other is in the nearby town of El Puerto de Santa Maria, where the Osborne headquarters are found.

The image of the bull is now displayed in stickers, keyrings and the like. Also, in sport events where a Spanish team or individual take part, the bull is embedded by supporters in the Flag of Spain in the manner of a coat of arms.

There are 89 examples of the Osborne bull advertisements, usually sited on a low hilltop so as to be clearly silhouetted against the sky. A few of them are also present, in a slightly different design, in MÃ©xico, where it retains its adverstising function.

The bull has become so closely associated to Spain that Catalan nationalists started a campaign against the only one existing in Catalonia which was repeatedly vandalized and eventually not replaced anymore.

trouble_906

I hate people who just copy and paste info from Wikipedia as an answer. It shows they have no knowledge themselves, and further ignores the fact that info on Wikipedia is posted by the general public, it is not like Enc Britannica or anything like that and many people have posted a lot of made up stuff just for a laugh.

So here is some additional info.

In 1997 the Supreme Court removed the Bulls from the billboard laws, under which they originally should have been removed. The court declared that the impact of the bulls, "enhances the view rather than encourages consumption of alchohol." There is still a controversy in so far as the image still belongs to the Osborne company. This issue may be resolved by the placing of a preservation order on the Bulls.

Many of them on areas other then the Costa Blanca are subject to vandalism. They are a symbol of Spain in a country where many regions do not want to be a part of Spain, hence the vandalism. The Bulls in the Catalan region are rarely maintained because the Catalan's do not consider themselves to be Spanish or a part of Spain.

Really interesting is how the bulls are maintained today.
The surviving bulls are still maintained by the small family Tejada workshop in El Puerto de Santa Maria where they were first built. Felix Tejada and his children travel all over the country to maintain their creations. The one at Tarifa needs the most attention because of the fierce winds it has to endure there. As well as the weather, the iron bulls must endure much vandalism which all makes work for the Tejada family. Adios

tinkerbell

i live in spain and they were originally little road signs for osbourne brandy,they built bigger ones and the people wanted them kept but they had to take the advert off,i didnt look this up !!!!!!!!!

abuela Nany

Both jims_pc and trouble_906 have given excellent and very complete answers concerning the billboards of the bulls that are all over Spain, and have been there for over fiftyyears.. Everyone has forgotten only one thing...The name...
"El Toro de Osborne"

San

I know which you mean, they look more like adverts and can usually be seen on the dry land at the sides of motorways, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. I think Spanish people just refer to them as "toros", which means bull. I do at least, I haven't heard any other names for them.

jackie m

There is one on the hills of the Costa Del sol.

Happy Murcia

They are everywhere from Bilbao to the south.

derf

The Osborne's black bull in Spain is a silhouetted image of a bull in semi-profile, and is regarded as the unofficial national symbol of Spain.

See http://www.spain4uk.co.uk/black_bull.htm for more details

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