Minotaur1.0018

Minotaur1.0018_Picasso

The Minotaur pursues a horse that carries a nude woman (a matador? with a sword pointed at the head of the horse that conveys her), and all stops suddenly as a small girl with a candle shines light on the scene. "The provocative scene, full of symbolic content, is difficult but not impossible to interpret." (MoMA)

Picasso used the Minotaur thematically and recurrently throughout his career, but especially during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). The Minotaur's unspeakable beastliness becomes symbolic for the violent atrocities of that civil war.

Does the sailboat (on horizon between horse's tail and Minotaur's thigh) turn the "matador" into a sleeping Ariadne? If so, then the picture may narrate a fullness of Ariadne's involvement with Theseus. (Macfarlane)