Friday, August 14, 2015

96

Picasso's "Minotauromachy" print of 1935 (101) was incorporated from several masterworks and is compositionally more complex than his previous etchings of Minotaurs. A relative of the blind Minotaur of (96), this Minotaur has vision. His anatomy was obtained from Delacroix's Hercules in (96A). The head is a negative space made positive from Tintoretto's "The Miracle of the Slave" (101D). The contour of the right side of the Minotaur's head was found beginning under the left armpit of the floating figure of St. Mark in (101D).


Continue down to his hand to find the snout of the Minotaur. Leaves on the tree account for the curly headed beast. Cloud patterns and the raking cornice on the right side of (101D) were repeated by Picasso as clouds and a mountain peak. At the far left of (101) Picasso placed a bearded man climbing up a ladder which may represent the artist's father. This head appears to be an exact copy of the bearded man and ladder in Rubens] "Descent from the Cross" (101A). The Minotaur's right hand is silhouetted against the light of a candle held by a girl. This refers to a dark shape under the head of St. Mark in (101D). Light radiates from the head of St. Mark. In (101), two women observe from a balcony as do two figures in (101D). However, the models for Picasso's women are to be found in the dark columns of (101D) where a wrapped head and a head in dark shadow prompted Picasso to make his observers. The pigeon's shape is a negative space between the left arm and chest of the man with a wrapped head. The young girl with a candle was pieced together from the head of the person at the base of the columns and the arm holding a broken staff in (101D). The head of the horse and its left front leg were seen by Picasso in the folds of clothing on the helmeted figure bending over the body of the Christian slave in (101D). The left leg of the helmeted figure was used for the horse's leg. Curved ropes suggested the horse's intestines spilling onto the ground. In addition, I see some similarity with Rembrandt's "The Blindness of Tobit" (101B) and Rembrandt's "Christ Washing the Disciples' Feet" (101 C). The Minotaur's head could also have been imagined from the negative shape of the distant landscape under the clouds in the "Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus" (101E) which could explain the large scale of the bull's head, the exiting bearded figure, the observers, the martyred figure, the horse's hind quarters and the shapes in the foreground of (101).

96

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