The Minotaur is an 1885 painting by the English painter George Frederic Watts. It depicts the Minotaur from Greek mythology as he waits for his young sacrificial victims to arrive by ship. It is an allegorical comment to child prostitution, an issue brought to attention by W. T. Stead in 1885. The painting has been in the collection of Tate Britain since 1897.
The Minotaur was most likely inspired by an article series by W. T. Stead titled "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon", published in the Pall Mall Gazette in July 1885. [1] Stead was the leading advocate against child prostitution in London and used the myth of the Minotaur and human sacrifices as an allegory in his article series. His journalism was groundbreaking and controversial with its investigative methods that included the purchase of a 13-year-old girl from her parents. [2] The articles contributed to the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, which changed the age of consent from 13 to 16 and criminalised homosexuality. [3] According to George Frederic Watts' friend Mrs Russell Barrington, Watts painted The Minotaur in response to "a painful subject" brought to attention by an article in an evening newspaper, believed by art historians to be one of Stead's articles. [1] Watts made the painting quickly in one morning. [1]
The Minotaur, a monster from Greek mythology who is half man and half bull, is seen half from behind, looking out over the sea behind a parapet in yellow sunlight. The monster is depicted as a red, muscular figure with a bull's head, hoof-like fists and a tail. According to the myth, the Minotaur lived on the island of Crete and the mainland Athenians were compelled to regularly ship seven of their young men and seven virgin girls for him to eat. [lower-alpha 1] The painting shows the Minotaur as he waits for the ship to arrive. One of his fists leans on the parapet and holds a small, crushed bird, which symbolises youthful innocence and purity. Watts said at the first exhibition of The Minotaur that he wanted to "hold up to detestation the bestial and brutal". [1] The painting is made with oil paint on canvas and measures 188.1 cm × 94.5 cm (74.1 in × 37.2 in). [1]
The Minotaur was first shown at the 1885 Liverpool Autumn exhibition. [1] In 1897, Watts gave The Minotaur and seventeen other paintings, including Mammon (1885), to the National Gallery of British Art, later renamed Tate Britain. [5]
Jorge Luis Borges discovered The Minotaur through a book about Watts by G. K. Chesterton and it inspired him to write the short story "The House of Asterion" (1947). [6] Borges' story is from the perspective of the Minotaur who describes his solitary life. [7]
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece, particularly the city of Athens, from which she most likely received her name. The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion. In art, she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear.
In Greek mythology, Aegeus was an archaic figure in the founding myth of Athens. The "goat-man" who gave his name to the Aegean Sea was the father of Theseus. He was also the founder of Athenian institutions and one of the kings of Athens.
In Greek mythology, Daedalus was a skillful architect and craftsman, seen as a symbol of wisdom, knowledge and power. He is the father of Icarus, the uncle of Perdix, and possibly also the father of Iapyx. Among his most famous creations are the wooden cow for Pasiphaë, the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete which imprisoned the Minotaur, and wings that he and his son Icarus used to attempt to escape Crete. It was during this escape that Icarus did not heed his father's warnings and flew too close to the sun; the wax holding his wings together melted and Icarus fell to his death.
In Greek mythology, the Minotaur is a mythical creature portrayed during classical antiquity with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, a being "part man and part bull". He dwelt at the center of the Labyrinth, which was an elaborate maze-like construction designed by the architect Daedalus and his son Icarus, on the command of King Minos of Crete. The Minotaur was eventually killed by the Athenian hero Theseus.
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, Pasiphaë was a queen of Crete, and was often referred to as goddess of witchcraft and sorcery. The daughter of Helios and the Oceanid nymph Perse, Pasiphaë is notable as the mother of the Minotaur. She conceived the Minotaur after mating with the Cretan Bull while hidden within a hollow cow that the Athenian inventor Daedalus built for her, after Poseidon cursed her to fall in love with the bull, due to her husband, Minos, failing to sacrifice the bull to Poseidon as he had promised.
Theseus was a divine hero and the founder of Athens from Greek mythology. The myths surrounding Theseus, his journeys, exploits, and friends, have provided material for storytelling throughout the ages.
In Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess from Tyre, Lebanon and the mother of King Minos of Crete. The continent of Europe was named after her. The story of her abduction by Zeus in the form of a bull was a Cretan story; as classicist Károly Kerényi points out, "most of the love-stories concerning Zeus originated from more ancient tales describing his marriages with goddesses. This can especially be said of the story of Europa."
In Greek mythology, Ariadne was a Cretan princess and the daughter of King Minos of Crete. There are different variations of Ariadne's myth, but she is known for helping Theseus escape the Minotaur and being abandoned by him on the island of Naxos. There, Dionysus saw Ariadne sleeping, fell in love with her, and later married her. Many versions of the myth recount Dionysus throwing Ariadne's jeweled crown into the sky to create a constellation, the Corona Borealis.
In Greek mythology, Icarus was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the architect of the labyrinth of Crete. After Theseus, king of Athens and enemy of Minos, escaped from the labyrinth, King Minos suspected that Icarus and Daedalus had revealed the labyrinth's secrets and imprisoned them—either in a large tower overlooking the ocean or the labyrinth itself, depending upon the account. Icarus and Daedalus escaped using wings Daedalus constructed from feathers, threads from blankets, clothes, and beeswax. Daedalus warned Icarus first of complacency and then of hubris, instructing him to fly neither too low nor too high, lest the sea's dampness clog his wings or the sun's heat melt them. Icarus ignored Daedalus’s instructions not to fly too close to the sun, causing the beeswax in his wings to melt. Icarus fell from the sky, plunged into the sea, and drowned. The myth gave rise to the idiom, "fly too close to the sun."
In Greek mythology, the Cretan Bull was the bull Pasiphaë fell in love with, giving birth to the Minotaur.
Cattle are prominent in some religions and mythologies. As such, numerous peoples throughout the world have at one point in time honored bulls as sacred. In the Sumerian religion, Marduk is the "bull of Utu". In Hinduism, Shiva's steed is Nandi, the Bull. The sacred bull survives in the constellation Taurus. The bull, whether lunar as in Mesopotamia or solar as in India, is the subject of various other cultural and religious incarnations as well as modern mentions in New Age cultures.
George Frederic Watts was a British painter and sculptor associated with the Symbolist movement. He said "I paint ideas, not things." Watts became famous in his lifetime for his allegorical works, such as Hope and Love and Life. These paintings were intended to form part of an epic symbolic cycle called the "House of Life", in which the emotions and aspirations of life would all be represented in a universal symbolic language.
"The House of Asterion" is a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. The story was first published in 1947 in the literary magazine Los Anales de Buenos Aires and republished in Borges's short story collection The Aleph in 1949. It is based on the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur and is told from the perspective of Asterion, the Minotaur.
The Minotaur is a mythological monster, half-man and half-bull.
"The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon" was a series of newspaper articles on child prostitution that appeared in The Pall Mall Gazette in July 1885. Written by the paper's crusading editor W. T. Stead, the series was a tour de force of Victorian journalism. With sensational crossheads, such as "The Violation of Virgins" and "Strapping Girls Down", the Maiden Tribute achieved, as a consequence, the implementation of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which raised the age of consent for girls from 13 to 16.
Mammon, originally exhibited as Mammon. Dedicated to his Worshippers, is an 1885 oil painting by English artist George Frederic Watts, currently in Tate Britain. One of a number of paintings by Watts in this period on the theme of the corrupting influence of wealth, Mammon shows a scene from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene in which Mammon, the embodiment of greed, crushes the weak through his indifference to their plight. This reflected Watts's belief that wealth was taking the place of religion in modern society, and that this worship of riches was leading to social deterioration. The painting was one of a group of works Watts donated to the South Kensington Museum in late 1886, and in 1897 it was one of 17 Watts paintings transferred to the newly created Tate Gallery. Although rarely exhibited outside the Tate Gallery, the popularity of reproductions made Mammon one of Watts's better known paintings.
After the Deluge, also known as The Forty-First Day, is a Symbolist oil painting by English artist George Frederic Watts, first exhibited as The Sun in an incomplete form in 1886 and completed in 1891. It shows a scene from the story of Noah's Flood, in which after 40 days of rain Noah opens the window of his Ark to see that the rain has stopped. Watts felt that modern society was in decline owing to a lack of moral values, and he often painted works on the topic of the Flood and its cleansing of the unworthy from the world. The painting takes the form of a stylised seascape, dominated by a bright sunburst breaking through clouds. Although this was a theme Watts had depicted previously in The Genius of Greek Poetry in 1878, After the Deluge took a radically different approach. With this painting he intended to evoke a monotheistic God in the act of creation, but avoid depicting the Creator directly.
In Greek mythology, Asterion or Asterius was a King of Crete and the foster-father of Minos.
In Greek mythology, Androgeus or Androgeos was a Cretan prince as the son of King Minos.