Gericault began to practice lithography—a medium associated with French Romanticism—in 1817, quickly mastering the technique. This image represents the popular English sport of boxing: two muscular combatants, in strikingly similar poses, confront one another. The black-and-white medium is used here to accentuate racial difference through stylized symmetries. In a dynamic and dramatic image, Gericault presents rivalry as a conflict between two male "opposites," with a highly charged space between them.