Image Details

Superstock/Artists Rights Society

In his 1936 work Minotaur and a Dead Mare in Front of a Cave, Picasso pays tribute to the minotaur’s naked savagery. The painting depicts the monster exiting his lair with the body of a mare he has recently eviscerated. The veiled figure who looks on probably represents one of the hapless young virgins who was periodically sacrificed to the minotaur. The hands reaching out of the cave may suggest someone expelling the minotaur from his home. Another Picasso painting depicts the outcast monster “moving house” with the eviscerated mare in tow.