Senior Capstone Final Version

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ARIADNE’S THREAD:
The Combinatorial Principles of Eros and Thanatos in the Vollard Suite
SENIOR CAPSTONE SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE VISUAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT AT EUGENE LANG COLLEGE THE NEW SCHOOL FOR LIBERAL ARTS
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By Aristea Rellou
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Faculty Instructor: Kenneth White
May 2016

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Table of Contents
I. Introducing the Vollard Suite 3
II. Ambroise Vollard 4
III. The Genesis of the Minotaur 8
A. The Origins of the Monster 8
B. A Personal Affair 11
C. The Spanish Roots of the Monster 15
IV. The Minotaur as the Artist’s Alter Ego 18
V. Between Two Loves 20
VII. The Interchangeability Between Neoclassicism and Surrealism 22
VIII. Tip to Toe 24
IX. Carl Jung Or The Psychological Roots of the Monster 26
X. Gender and Sexuality: An examination of the Erotic Or In Fear of Death 28
XI. Bad Hair Day 36
XII. By a Show of Hands 41
XIII. Synopsis: The End of the Minotaur? 43
XIV. Bibliography 45
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I. Introducing the Vollard Suite
Amidst the upheavals of his personal life and the challenging sociopolitical realities of the
interwar period, the Cretan legend of the Minotaur was little more than the catapult that
propelled Picasso to pictorially narrate a tale in which mythological tradition blends in with
personal allusions, innately Spanish and bullfight-specific themes, sexual urges and underlying
thoughts and beliefs. Within this self-referential complex, Picasso sets out to measure himself
against the art of the archaic past in search for timelessness and purity. Having seen Europe
disintegrate into chaos in the age after the war, in the Vollard Suite Picasso is trying to
singlehandedly bring order and stillness back to the world.
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In the plethoric wealth of Picasso’s work, the Minotaur represents but 10 years of consistent
creation. It is, however, a period that will influence both artist and monster throughout the course
of the twentieth century. It is normal for contemporary scholarship to associate Picasso with the
Minotaur, but the Minotaur too will forever bear the mark of Picasso’s interpretation and
portrayal of him. The thirties, the time when the Minotaur became a permanent resident of
Picasso’s work, were the most sexual period in the artist’s oeuvre. Torn between his wife Olga
and his lover, Marie-Thérèse, Picasso got caught in the grip of the greatest conceivable passion.
Also, for the first time, he had a lover who was considerably younger, a woman who was still
maturing and gave Picasso the chance to observe the transition from girl to woman and from
woman to mother within the span of a few years. For all those reasons, the Minotaur motif, as it
is represented in Picasso’s work, is one of the most fundamental archetypal symbols of the
twentieth century, and it demands critical attention.

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The Minotaur themed plates of the Vollard Suite are magnificent in their mood, their
composition, symbolic force and technical mastery. In every field of art, in engraving as well as
in painting and sculpture, Picasso often reassembles his familiar thematic vocabulary into
completely new creations. As he tirelessly experiments with new techniques, Picasso explores
new facets to the myth of the minotaur, one of the most seminal myths of western civilization.
Perhaps due to the multi-layered mythical connotation and complicated histories that surround
the Vollard Suite, most discourses of scholarship tend to examine one aspect of this body of
work. In doing so, scholarship has undoubtedly unraveled several marvelous aspects of the
prints, but the inadequacy of one-dimensionality poses a considerable hurdle for contemporary
critics. The purpose of this essay is to critically examine and collect the various interpretations
that have been given to the Minotaur who lives within this body of work, and to propose that
only through the deconstruction of the narratives that are traditionally spoken in regard to the
series we will then be able to construct a firm synthesis of ideas that will enable us to
comprehend Picasso’s oeuvre and its massive effect on modernity.
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II. Ambroise Vollard
The publication of the hundred etchings created by Pablo Picasso between 1930 and 1937, that
came to be known as the Vollard Suite, was one of Ambroise Vollard’s most impressive
undertakings. In it, Picasso is constructing a world made entirely of artists and their muses, fauns
and centaurs, minotaurs and lustful satyrs. Picasso’s aim is to transport us to an archaic world
that is far removed from all bucolic gaiety. Atemporal and as metaphysical as it is realistic, the

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Vollard Suite attempts to walk the wire of myth, sex and truth without the support of any
balancing pole.
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Ambroise Vollard, one of France’s greatest art dealers and publishers, remains relatively
unknown today. Vollard’s work as an art dealer begun around 1890, when he moved to Paris to
study law and began to scour the small print shops of the Quartier Latin for small drawings and
engravings . His expeditions as a collector brought him such success that he gave up his legal1
studies and started working at the newly founded gallery L’Union Artistique. Soon after, in 1893,
Vollard opened his own gallery at 39 Rue Laffitte. Two years later he moved his gallery to 6 Rue
Laffitte, where for a brief period of time it became the center of the Paris avant-garde. Artists and
collectors alike flocked to 6 Rue Laffitte. Soon Vollard began to exhibit works by Degas, Forain,
Nabis, Renoir, Vuillard and Cézanne with significant success.
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Around the same time graphic art advanced significantly. Gauguin and Vallotton developed new
possibilities of expression in the woodcut, and lithography was used extensively by Chéret,
Bonnard and Toulouse-Lautrec, who raised the craft to the rank of art. With these developments
in mind, Vollard devoted his creative energies to the publication of art prints. The commercial
reception of these publications was rather poor, but Vollard’s art dealing business was so
successful that he could uninhibitedly pursue his passion for art publication .2
Bolliger, Hans. Picasso’s Vollard Suite. Trans. Guterman, Norbert. Thames and Hudson. USA. 1985. v.1
Bolliger, Hans. Picasso’s Vollard Suite. Trans. Guterman, Norbert. Thames and Hudson. USA. 1985. vii.2

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Vollard first met Picasso in 1901, during the artist’s second visit to Paris. They were introduced
by art dealer Pedro Manach , who was one of the first art dealers to sell young Picasso’s art.3
Soon after, Vollard organized an exhibition of the twenty-year-old artist’s works. The exhibition
was not particularly successful, but it brought some critical acclaim to the young artist. Later on,
Vollard continued to show and buy Picasso’s works, especially the works of the Blue and Rose
Period. Later on, Vollard’s hesitancy to embrace Picasso’s new work during the Cubist period put
a strain on their relationship, without ever completely severing it. In their sporadic collaborations
during the next few years Picasso continued to develop his visual and thematic vocabulary.
However, when in 1931 Albert Skira published Les Métamorphoses d’Ovide with thirty
illustrations by Picasso, Vollard saw the artist’s newfound interest in etching as an opportunity,
and immediately commissioned him to create 100 new engravings, which were to collectively
become known as the Vollard Suite.
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Unfortunately, Vollard passed away in an automobile accident in 1939, two years after the
completion of the series but before he was able to sell it. For that reason, we cannot be certain of
whether he intended to sell the series as a set or if he had another classification in mind . The4
current classification of the prints, which we inherited from Hans Bolliger , includes twenty-5
Bolliger, Hans. Picasso’s Vollard Suite. Trans. Guterman, Norbert. Thames and Hudson. USA. 1985. ix.3
The number of source books on Vollard is astonishingly small. We have a few interesting papers, and4
two valuable books: Souvenirs d’un marchand de tableaux by Ambroise Vollard, Paris 1937, and
Ambroise Vollard, Editeur, 1867-1939, an Appreciation and Catalogue by Una E. Johnson, New York
1944.
Bolliger, Hans. Picasso’s Vollard Suite. Trans. Guterman, Norbert. Thames and Hudson. USA. 1985.5
1-100.

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seven (27) sheets dealing with miscellaneous themes, five (5) sheets on The Battle of Love, forty-
six sheets (46) on The Sculptor’s Studio, four (4) portraits of Rembrandt, three (3) of Ambroise
Vollard and, finally, fifteen (15) sheets on the theme of The Minotaur and The Blind Minotaur.
Eleven of the sheets dealing with the Minotaur were completed in an unprecedented burst of
creative energy, between May 17 and June 18, 1933. The magnificent four sheets of the Blind
Minotaur were completed a little more than a year later, between September 22 and October 23,
1934 . The entire series was completed in 1937.6
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In the majority of these plates Picasso constructs the intertwined bodies of his characters with
unparalleled linear purity. Perhaps inspired by the archaic worlds he encountered during his visit
to Rome, Florence, Naples and Pompeii in 1917, Picasso returns to presenting his characters in a
neoclassical manner. Whether his choice to return to neoclassicism was driven by a subconscious
desire to resist the increasingly powerful waves of surrealism and abstraction is impossible to
confirm. It is more probable that Picasso intuitively felt that this particular set of characters
demanded to be placed in a neoclassical setting, and he thus obeyed the stylistic demands of his
subject. The Minotaur that Picasso is presenting to us in the Vollard Suite is a product of the
artist’s own interpretation of the ancient myth. For him the Minotaur is the ideal union of man
and animal, and is revealing of man’s most archaic desires and impulses. He can be a tender
seducer, a friend, or a threatening menace. The Minotaur can assume the role of a calm and
composed calm, or he can transform into a cannibalistic, bloodthirsty beast from one plate to the
next. The Minotaur is the memory of Picasso’s Spanish routs, the memory of Europe’s collective
Bolliger, Hans. Picasso’s Vollard Suite. Trans. Guterman, Norbert. Thames and Hudson. USA. 1985. x.6

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history, and the most foundational basis of modernity: the battle of reason and light against the
mystical and the darkness.
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In the plates he created in 1933 Picasso narrates the life-story of the Minotaur, up until the latter
expires from a mortal wound. A year later his interest in the Minotaur is rekindled, and Picasso
reimagines the reality of the Minotaur’s redemption, which he has translated as the animal’s
inevitable blindness. Blindness is the fate that is most dreaded by all visual artists, and in the four
aquatints that Picasso produced in 1934 - now known as The Blind Minotaur series - the artists is
trying to capture the image of the Minotaur during this Oedipal plight, as the half-man, half-bull
is now guided forward by a young girl.
III. The Genesis of the Minotaur
A. The Origins of the Monster
The Minotaur’s introduction into the Vollard Suite coincides with the publication, in May 1933,
of the first issue of the journal Minotaure, a surrealist publication founded by Albert Skira with
editors André Breton and Pierre Mabille. Picasso had been asked by Skira to produce the
inaugural cover of the magazine, the centerpiece of which was a drawing of the half-man, half-
bull hybrid. Given that Picasso had already collaborated with Skira on the edition of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, and given that by this point the artist had already produced several images of
Minotaurs, the appearance of Picasso’s collage with a Minotaur on the cover of the surrealist
journal was almost inevitable. And yet, it was neither Picasso nor Skira who proposed the

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magazine’s title . Minotaure came from Georges Bataille, who found a new fascination in the7
groundbreaking archaeological excavations of the time.
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The excavation of the archaeological site of Knossos (Κνωσός) began in 1900 ACE by the
English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans (1851–1941) and his team, and they continued for 35
years. Knossos, the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and Europe’s oldest city ,8
was the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture and the home of
the Minotaur. At the time of The Minotaure’s publication, interest in the excavation was
heightened across Europe. It was precisely during this time that Picasso was drawing closer to
Bataille and other “dissident” Surrealists . The unearthing of Minos’s palace, with its dark,9
convoluted passages, maze-like storerooms, and narrow stairways leading nowhere, had revealed
a new facet of Greek architecture and had lent new gravitas to the myth of the labyrinth.
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In view of the emergence of the Cretan palace, the myth itself took new connotations for
Bataille. The labyrinth became seen as a pivotal locus in the history of civilization, for it was
there that the Athenian hero Theseus slew the Minotaur and solved the unsolvable puzzle of the
labyrinth. In that one stroke of his dagger, Theseus severed all ties to the dark, archaic world and
proposed the omnipotence of rational thought. The Minotaur upset the clear distinction between
Florman, Lisa. Myth and Metamorphosis: Picasso Classical Prints of the 1930s. The MIT Press,7
Cambridge, MA. London, England. 140-141
Whitelaw, T.D. Collecting Classical cities: prospects and problems. Archaeological Survey and the City.8
Edit. Johnson, Paul. Oxbow Books. Oxford, England. 2012. 223.
Fry, Edward. Picasso Speaks. Cubism. Oxford University Press. Oxford, England. 1978. 167.9

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Inaugural Cover of Minotaure (from Myth & Metamorphosis)
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man and animal, between bestiality and rationality, and for that reason his fate was irreversibly
determined when the wheels of modernity begun to shift. The death of the Minotaur thus became
the most decisive turning point in the history of mankind. The story of the beast who was
defeated by man symbolized a seminal shift in thought, when rationality overpowered mysticism,
light overpowered darkness, and the modern world was born.
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B. A Personal Affair
Insofar as the Minotaur of the Vollard Suite arrived on the scene concurrently with Minotaure,
we might easily presume him to be the mythological creature envisioned by Bataille and admired
by the Surrealists for his super-human qualities. Yet, Picasso’s Minotaur was and remains
foremost an inhabitant of the Suite, where he exists within a complicated network of relations
that instinctively develop between him and the other characters of the series . To situate this10
Minotaur is therefore instrumental to return him to his native context and to navigate his
appearance in Picasso’s work in the same way that the artist himself would have encountered the
mythical beast.
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“Poets and historians since Antiquity, from Homer to the present day, had said that the first
Greek civilization had been born not in Mycenae, that is, on the continent, but on the island of
Crete, and that it had had its heyday in the times of King Minos, 12 or 13 centuries before Christ.
Minos, they said, had had several wives who had in vain tried to give him an heir: their entrails
Florman, Lisa. Myth and Metamorphosis: Picasso Classical Prints of the 1930s. The MIT Press,10
Cambridge, MA. London, England. 142.

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produced nothing but snakes and scorpions. Only Pasiphae at last succeeded in giving him
normal children, among them, Phaedra and the fair Ariadne. Unfortunately, Minos offended the
god Poseidon, who took his revenge by making Pasiphae fall in love with a bull, regardless of
the fact that it was a sacred animal.”
Poseidon, who asked the King of Crete to sacrifice the animal as an offering to the god, had
given the bull to Minos. Minos, however, thought the bull too handsome to be sacrificed, and he
sacrificed a goat instead.
“In satisfying her passion, Pasiphae was aided by Daedalus, who had arrived on the island from
Athens, where he had been forced to flee for having killed one of his nephews in a fit of jealousy.
From this marriage was born the Minotaur, a strange animal, half-man and half-bull. All Minos
needed to do to discover the identity of his wife’s lover was to take one look at this animal. He
then ordered Daedalus to build a labyrinth in which to keep the monster. But he also imprisoned
there the builder and his son, Icarus. It was impossible to find a way out of that maze of
passageways and corridors. However, Daedalus, an infinitely resourceful man, built some wax
wings for himself and for his son and thus, they were able to rise into the sky and flee. Elated by
the fact that he was actually flying, Icarus forgot his father’s advice about keeping safe distance
from the sun: the wax melted and he plummeted into the sea. In spite of his profound grief,
Daedalus managed to land on Sicily, taking with him the earliest technical notions.
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In the meantime, the Minotaur roamed around the twists and turns of the labyrinth where, every
seven years, he demanded to be given seven young girls and seven youths to eat. Minos had
them delivered to him by the peoples who had been vanquished in the wars. He also claimed

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them from Aegeus, the King of Athens, whose son, Theseus, despite being the heir to the throne,
requested to form part of these groups of men, with an eye to killing the monster. He landed on
Crete with the other victims and, before entering the labyrinth, bribed Ariadne, who gave him a
ball of thread, which he could unravel as he went through the labyrinth and so find his way out
again. The courageous youth succeeded in his endeavor, found his way out of the labyrinth and,
fulfilling his promise, married Ariadne and took her away with him. However, in Naxos, he
abandoned her while she slept on the beach and continued on his journey accompanied only by
his fellows.”
This is how Indro Montanelli relates the legend of the Minotaur to the remote origin of the11
series of works executed by Picasso in the thirties. Far removed from this account, Picasso
offered a significantly different version of the myth to his companion, Françoise Gilot, when he
introduced her to the engravings of Vollard Suite :12
“He then showed me a few more engravings. In all of them, there appeared bearded and shaven
men, Minotaurs, centaurs, figures of fauns and women. This entire collection of beings, naked or
partly dressed, seemed to represent a drama of Greek mythology.
– All this takes place on a mountainous island in the Mediterranean – Picasso explained –. Like
Crete. It is there, along the coastline, where the Minotaurs live. They are the wealthy lords of the
island. They know that they are monsters and live, just like the dandies and dilettantes you might
find anywhere, a type of existence that smacks of the decadent; in houses replete with works of
Montanelli, Indro. Historia de los griegos. Barcelona, Plaza & Jañes Editores, S.A., 1995. 13-14.11
Gilot, Francoise and Lake, Carlton. Life with Picasso. Barcelona, Editorial Bruguera, S.A., 1965.12
43-44.

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art executed by fashionable sculptors and painters. They like to surround themselves with
beautiful women. They force the fishermen to go out to sea to abduct the pretty girls from the
nearby islands for their own enjoyment. When the heat of the day has waned, they receive the
sculptors and their models in their homes, throwing parties where they dance to the beat of music
and everybody has his fill of clams and champagne until melancholy vanishes to be replaced by
euphoria. From that moment onwards, the party becomes an orgy.
Then Picasso showed me another plate, with a Minotaur on his knees while a gladiator was
finishing him off with a huge dagger. A numerous collection of faces, mostly female, was
observing the scene from behind the barrier.
Plate 89 – Thames and Hudson

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We are told that, when Theseus arrived, he killed a Minotaur, but it was just one of many. It
happened every Sunday: a young Greek would arrive from the continent and, whenever he killed
a Minotaur, he made all the women very happy, especially the old ones -- Picasso went on. A
Minotaur takes care of his women lavishly but, as his is a reign of terror; they rejoice to see him
dead.
Now Picasso began to speak very slowly.
– A Minotaur cannot be loved for himself – he added –. This, at least, is what he thinks.
Somehow, it seems unreasonable to him. Perhaps that’s why he enjoys orgies.
No sooner had he said this than he showed me another engraving, where a Minotaur was
watching a woman as she slept.
– He is studying her – declared Picasso –, trying to read her thoughts, endeavoring to find out
whether she loves him “because” he’s a monster…
Picasso stopped still and looked at me, adding:
– Women are so strange that they reach this point, you know that well, being a woman yourself.
And them, as he looked at the engraving again, he added in an almost inaudible voice:
– It’s hard to tell whether he wants to wake her or kill her.”
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C. The Spanish Roots of the Monster
There is little information about Picasso’s early years. His upbringing seems to have been that of
a typical Andalusian child, living with an extended family of women: his mother, grandmothers

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and a succession unmarried aunts . This is held to be adequate explanation for Picasso’s13
alterations of misogyny and tenderness, cruelty and attention that he gave to women later in life.
As the only boy - and a very talented one - in an extended family of women, Picasso received
great attention and care as a child. His ego started to develop at a very young age, after his early
work was unavoidably compared to the work of his artist father. Young Pablo’s skill and talent
was profound and impressed everyone who encountered it, thus boosting the boy’s confidence
and self-image. Once Pablo became aware of the rarity of his gift for art making, he developed
an oedipal rivalry with his father in an effort to attract the attention and love of his mother and
aunts. Throughout his life, Picasso’s talent was an adequate instigator for friends and women to
flock near him, further boosting his ego.
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Picasso’s father, the art teacher José Ruiz y Blasco, took young Pablo to see his first bullfight at
age three. We can only imagine the indelible impression that the chaos and the pathos of the
scene must have had on the child. Such early experiences with the bullfighting tradition shaped
the artist’s young mind and, perhaps, inscribed the fight between man and animal as an archetype
on his subconscious. The love and care of the lineage of women that surrounded him as child
was contrasted by the brutality and violence of the bullfights, and young Picasso begun to
recognize the world around him and within him as a plane where opposites coexist and inform
each other.
Rellou, Aristea. Scopophilia in the Sculptor’s Studio: An Analysis of Power Play in the Vollard Suite.13
The New School. USA. 2015.

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Bullfighting scenes have not been uncommon in Spain’s plastic tradition since its early
beginnings. As María Teresa Ocaña recalls , the theme of bullfighting, which fascinated Picasso14
throughout his life, appears in his first works, executed in Barcelona in the periods from 1895 to
1896, and 1897 to 1898. The tradition of taurine representation is rich in the work of nineteenth-
century Spanish painters , such as Mariano Fortuny, Martí Alsina and Ramón Casas, that15
Picasso must have been familiar with.
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For the rest of his life, Picasso continued to work on bull-related themes. Despite working with
tremendous assiduousness on the bull theme - either within the context of a bullfight or, very
often, of a fight between a bull and a horse - the first Minotaur appeared in 1928, when Picasso
collaborated with the Catalonian publisher Gustavo Gili Roig to produce a series of etchings for
the initial part of Picasso’s best known series of engravings, La Tauromaquia. From that moment
on, and with particularly insatiable persistence in the Vollard Suite, Picasso begun to
systematically appoint the semi-human monster as the trustee of the vicissitudes of his
problematic existence.
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It seems likely that Picasso’s trips to Spain in the summers of 1933 and 1934 reinvigorated his
interest in the fight between man and bull. The matador de toros (killer of bulls) recognizes a
worthy opponent in the bull and the physicality of their fight transcends into a battle of ideas and
Ocaña, Maria Teresa. Picasso and the Bulls. Picasso. The Love and the Anguish. The road to Guernica.14
Kyoto, The National Museum of Modern Art, October 31-December 17, 1995 // Tokyo, Tobu Museum of
Art, December 23, 1995-March 10, 1996. 340-342
Brown, Jonathan. Picasso and the Spanish Tradition of Painting. Yale University Press. USA.15

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symbols. In the eyes of Picasso, at a certain point during their battle, torero and bull begun to
merge into one uniformed being. They were no longer man and animal; the relationship between
them, the ceremonious dance that precedes the bull’s inevitable fate, became the primary
component of bullfighting for the artist. In his never-ending search for formal purity, Picasso
recognized this dynamic and through this passionate encounter of ideas the Minotaur was born.
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The reinforced Minotaur starts off by entering The Sculptor’s Studio to amuse himself alongside
the sculptor, the models, the food and drink. After looking lovingly at a beautiful woman, or
raping her, depending on his mood, the Minotaur goes on to purge his sins through blindness and
death, in The Blind Minotaur.
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IV. The Minotaur as the Artist’s Alter Ego
At this point in our investigation it may be gathered that the Greek legend and Picasso’s version
of the Minotaur have substantial differences. Picasso’s Minotaur is wearing an invisible armor,
made of centuries of Spanish tradition and of Picasso’s inner needs, projections and desires. The
artist’s nod to the archaic and the timeless is, however, apparent to any investigator of Picasso’s
oeuvre. This, according to Paloma Esteban Leal , might be due to identification - an issue of16
intense debate among the different scholars of this period of his work - of Picasso with the
mythical characters he portrays, and in particular with the Minotaur.
Esteban Leal, Paloma. Picasso/Minotauro. Actar/Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia and16
Aldeasa, 2001. 224.

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The half-bull, half-man hybrid and his lament resonated with Picasso, who found solace in
delving into the imagined adventures of the Minotaur. Two photographs that show the voluntary
metamorphosis of the artist into a man-bull further substantiate this identification. The first
photograph, taken by Dora Maar in 1937, captured the artist somewhere along the Mediterranean
coast of France, holding the skull of an ox in one of his hands, while closing his eyes so as to
dispel any hint of doubt and to render his transmutation into a minotaur easier. By closing his
eyes, Picasso appears to be making an effort to lose himself into the animal; to expel any signs of
personal identity and humanity and to give into the uninhibited and voracious nature of the beast.
The second photograph is even more explicit: Picasso is disguised as a mythical beast, hiding his
face under a mask of a bull’s face, that was given to him by his friend, the bullfighter Luis
Miguel Dominguin .17
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Before discovering the Minotaur, Picasso’s primary pictorial alter ego was the harlequin, a
character from the commedia dell’arte, upon whom Picasso projected his various experiences
and psychological states. The harlequin gave way to the Minotaur when a particularly
complicated period in Picasso’s existence, brought on by the ups and downs of his private life
and the social turbulence of the mid-war years, produced the need for a being of higher
symbolical significance.
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Aldeasa, 2001. 224.

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As stated so often, the Minotaur is Picasso’s alter ego; a character that reflects his different inner
states, who can capture and demonstrate the contrasting power that used the artist’s mind as their
battle ground. In the Minotaur, Picasso recognized a comrade, a creature whose powers - offered
to him by the gods - were both his absolute ally and his most threatening enemy. The Minotaur’s
strength was to be his downfall, as his reign of terror was brought to an abrupt end when Theseus
solved the maze and killed the monster, allowing us to wonder whom Picasso recognized as his
own Theseus.
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V. Between Two Loves
To further investigate Picasso’s identification with the mythical monster we should first
comprehend the context within which The Minotaur was created. Picasso married the Diaghilev
ballet dancer, Olga Khokhlova, in 1918. Olga was an aspiring socialite who moved in the circles
of the Parisian bourgeoisie and, at the time, her position and status supported Picasso’s goals for
professional development. In 1921, Paulo Picasso was born. It is known that, as early as 1923-24
the rows between husband and wife were frequent . As a result of that, Picasso begun to distort18
his wife in his paintings, first by adding disturbing elements in the composition and, later on, by
deforming her completely in a fashion close to that of the surrealists.
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During the creation of the Vollard Suite Picasso was involved with Marie-Thérèse Walter
(1909-1977), a young girl he first met in 1927 at the Galeries Lafayette, in Paris. When Picasso
Aldeasa, 2001. 226.

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first saw her, in the midst of the chaos of his marital life, he immediately recognized in her a
possible model for his works. Soon after their first encounter an intimate secret alliance and
sexual partnership was formed between them, at the expense of Picasso’s wife. The illusion of
female perfection was revived in the artist of fifty by the athletic blond girl of seventeen. He is
reported as saying: “The day I met Marie-Thérèse I realized that I had before me what I had
always been dreaming about.” The burst of creativity that the Vollard Suite illustrates must have
been, among others, a symptom of the general euphoria that Picasso felt in the company of the
attractive Marie-Thérèse. The child-woman that she was at the time seems to have stimulated a
dominant side to Picasso. She is reported bowing her head in front of him, and crying repeatedly
because of her “wonderfully terrible” lover.
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The marital crisis between Pablo and Olga escalates to a point of no return when Marie-Thérèse
becomes pregnant and gives birth to a daughter, Maya, in 1935. The situation was aggravated
even more by the fact that Picasso, a Spanish citizen - as he never attempted to acquire the
French citizenship - was unable to obtain a divorce.
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These unusual personal and emotional circumstances coincided with a period of profound
political unrest in Picasso’s native land, which was devastated by the Civil War (1936-1939). In
Picasso’s confessions to his friend, the photographer David Douglas Duncan, the artist described
this period as “the worst time in his life”. Indeed, for a certain time Picasso even completely
abandoned the practice of painting, only to replace it with works on paper and poetry. Such was
the turbulent setting in which The Minotaur was born.

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VII. The Interchangeability Between Neoclassicism and Surrealism
In the opinion of Pierre Daix, the appearance of the Minotaur in Pablo Picasso’s work can be
seen as his commitment to surrealism . Daix sees the mythological character as an opportunity19
for the artist “to project his existential situation onto a poetic quest and thus compensate for the
collapse of his marriage.” Such an interpenetration of autobiography and myth, however, is
structurally opposed to the basis of surrealism. To put it briefly, the surrealists draw from the
Minotaur his surreal, extra human condition. Instead of seeing his as a beast, surrealist thinkers
recognize in the Minotaur a creature who strives against man and his social system and instead
gives into his urges and his impulses even if, ultimately, he dies in battle. Picasso, however, who
traditionally resisted the surrealists’ ultimatums, is fascinated by the human half of the monster.
He is interested in the dynamic tension that the two contrasting natures of the creature produce
and in the Minotaur’s ability to navigate the complexities of both worlds.
!
Even though his perception of the mythical monster differs from the militants of surrealism,
Picasso did not fail to converge with them at several points, as it is mirrored in the evolution of
his works towards the end of the twenties and the early thirties . Familiar with Freud and Jung,20
and a constant seeker of the advice of Lacan, who was a close friend of the artist and his personal
physician, Picasso frequented the circles of Parisian surrealist writers, poets and artists. In fact,
during the brief period of his life in the thirties, when he temporarily abandoned painting in light
Sircoulomb-Müller, Valérie-Anne. The Minotaur and Minotauromachy or In Search of an Alter Ego in19
Picasso’s Imaginary Labyrinth (Private Mythology - Surrealism). Pablo Picasso and Marie-Thérèse:
Between Classicism and Surrealism. Edit. Müller, Markus. Kerber Verlag. Germany. 2004. 45.
Aldeasa, 2001. 220.

!23
of the turbulent personal circumstances he was experiences, Picasso practiced the surrealist
technique of automatic writing extensively, and collaborated on a significant number of projects
with the surrealists. According to William Rubin, Picasso used the Minotaur as the fundamental
element in his iconographic repertoire because it represented the paradigmatic schema of
surrealist thought. In the center of the labyrinth - the hidden depths of the mind - stood the
Minotaur, the symbol of all irrational impulses. Theseus, the matador, the killer of the beast,
symbolizes the conscious mind as it opens up to unknown regions to emerge once more by virtue
of intelligence, that is, its own awareness.
!
In the 1920s Picasso came under the influence of the Paris Surrealists, who repeatedly attempted
to woo him, particularly because of his reputation and influence. Picasso had known André
Breton, the dogmatic leader of the movement since 1918 , but he was never fully integrated into21
the movement. Unsurprisingly, 1933 is the year when The Minotaur series came to life, and the
surrealist influence is apparent on all of the plates. Though neoclassical in appearance, the plates
explore the instinctive and the unconscious side of human existence in a way similar to that
employed by the surrealists in their work of the same period. The fathoming of ancient myths
acts as a timeless mirror of the human condition, which allows the artist to delve into the
archetypal foundations of Western civilization and to discover the guiding principles behind
every human action. Despite these undeniable connections between Picasso and surrealist
thought, the surrealists were drawn to the Minotaur myth primarily for the collective unconscious
Müller, Markus. The Work in the Age of its Stylistic Convertibility. Pablo Picasso and Marie-Thérèse:21

!24
that it represents. Picasso, on the other hand, treats the collective unconscious as the ground or
basis where he can embark on autobiographical projections. Individualistic surrealism meets
stylistic pluralism in Picasso’s work, thus producing artistic unity.
!
For Picasso, who is often referred to as the “Realistic surrealist, ” the biomorphic22
metamorphosis that is at play in his interpretation of the Minotaur, doubtlessly represents the
potentiation of his creative potential. Organic deformation and the dissociation of subforms as a
fundamental expansion of his formal syntax have been associated repeatedly with surrealism. For
the surrealists, “metamorphosis,” in the Nietzschean sense of the word, was not running away
from the natural state but a heightening and potentiation of being, whilst for Picasso, the
Minotaur represents a heightened version of himself, a version that is far removed from the
influence of all choro-chronic conditions and it is therefore pure, authentic and eternal.
!
VIII. Tip to Toe
In 1929, Georges Bataille published his rumination on The Big Toe, in order to definitively
illustrate that this digit is, compared to all other evolutionary tools, the most significant
indication of human beings’ humanity. For Bataille, the big toe is the most human part of the
human body, in the sense that no other element of the body is as differentiated from the
corresponding element of the anthropoid ape . Bataille is also interested in the classic23
Müller, Markus. The Work in the Age of its Stylistic Convertibility. Pablo Picasso and Marie-Thérèse:22
Bataille, Georges. The Big Toe (1929). Trans Stoekl, Allan. Excerpted from the book Visions of Excess:23
Selected Writings, 1927-1939, Minneapolis: UMP, 1985.

!25
phenomenon of foot fetishism, treating it as an indication of base seduction, which accounts for
the burlesque value that is always more or less attached to the pleasures condemned
superficiality.
!
Created only three years after the publication of Bataille’s article on the big toe, the hands and
feet of the characters of the Vollard Suite are some of their most striking characteristics.
Picasso’s insistence on using neoclassical forms throughout the series resulted in the depiction of
several features that share the gravitas of Greco-Roman Classical Sculpture. Muscular and
excellently defined, the hands and feet of the Vollard Suite characters can be analyzed as
microcosms of their own. In regard to our larger investigation of the Minotaur, however, it is
imperative to note the role that they play as elements of his physical body.
!
Often abnormally large and muscular, the feet of the Minotaur often resemble the feet that one
would encounter on a sculpture of Poseidon, for example, from classical antiquity. Accentuated
in size and scale, the Minotaur’s are the most human elements of his body. His hands, equally
large and impressive, are tools with which he can practice his human ingenuity, or attack and
capture his victims. Whilst, for Bataille toes are the most human part of our bodies, for Picasso
toes and hands are indicative of the individual who bears them. In the Minotaur’s case, they are
as half-human and half-bull as he is, and that is why they are so dangerous.
!
!
!

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IX. Carl Jung Or The Psychological Roots of the Monster
Although Carl Jung and Pablo Picasso were contemporaries, there is no evidence that they had
any notable influence upon one another . Nevertheless, a year before The Minotaur was created,24
the psychiatrist Carl Jung published a perceptive analysis of Picasso’s work, which can be seen
under the scope of the creation of the Vollard Suite, as well as in regard to Picasso’s other works
of the same period. In 1932, the Museum of Fine Art in Zurich opened its first Picasso
retrospective , which consisted of approximately 225 works and media. On the last day of the25
exhibition the Neue Zürcher Zeitung published a feuilleton by Carl Jung, entitled “Picasso”. In it,
Jung presented a psychiatric analysis of Picasso’s work. The publication caused heated
discussions for the months that followed, as Jung labels Picasso as a “schizophrene,” based on
his psychiatric evaluation of his works. In order to come to this conclusion Jung examined the
various Picasso paintings, sculptures and engravings with the same process that he examined his
patients’ drawings. Based on the examination of the work’s disturbed imagery and
characteristics, Jung concluded that Picasso is suffering from a schizoid illness. This
pronouncement, though it provoked a vociferous reaction in the art world, was not a
condemnation per se, as Jung recognized in Picasso’s imagery an important process taking place,
which he referred to as Nekyia - the descent into hell. To Jung, this process has immense
significance, for only by undertaking such journeys into the most remote and unexamined areas
of the unconscious can one aspire for clarity.
Sikes, A. William. The Psychological Roots of Modernism: Picasso and Jung. Routledge. UK. 2015. 3.24
Hohl, Reinhold. C.G. Jung on Picasso (and Joyce). Notes in the History of Art. Vol. 3, No. 1. The25
University of Chicago Press. 1983. Acc. Online: JStor: <http://www.jstor.org/stable/23202362?
seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents > 10-18

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Most critics, including Leo Steinberg, have essentially taken purely Freudian approaches to
exploring Picasso’s work. Steinberg suggests that Picasso’s work – primarily addresses male
audiences as it unveils and exposes male sexuality, displaying it with unprecedented directness .26
Admittedly, Jung’s exploration of Picasso’s works focuses primarily on the artist’s cubist works,
and it cannot be satisfyingly substantiated in the analysis of his neoclassical or surrealist pieces.
However, there is one aspect of Jung’s critique that transcends the confines of the cubist
movement. In both its motifs and forms, Picasso’s work is a precise visual expression of the
notion of individuation , a process that Jung explored extensively. Individuation involves an27
active relation between the ego and the unconscious, which unfolds through dreams, fantasies
and works of the imagination, including works of art. When individuation is enacted, the
individual descends into the netherworld of their own unconscious mind, where they encounter a
wide range of symbolic or archetypal figures. Given the wide range of discourses and media that
Picasso would have to be aware of in order to consciously produce the Vollard Suite, it is almost
certain that the process that was instead taking place during the creation of the plates, was Jung’s
individuation.
!
Whether Picasso was indeed a schizophrenic, we are not in the position to know for certain.
Jung’s criticism, however, is evidence that various distinguished intellectuals and psychiatrists
Sikes, A. William. The Psychological Roots of Modernism: Picasso and Jung. Routledge. UK. 2015.26
75.
Sikes, A. William. The Psychological Roots of Modernism: Picasso and Jung. Routledge. UK. 2015. 6.27

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strived to unpack the psychological undertones and reasoning behind Picasso’s work in the
1930s. The myth of Ariadne, Theseus and the Minotaur is also of particular psychoanalytic
significance. Whether one perceives the tale of the Labyrinth as symbolic of the process when a
young child’s psyche is first introduced to rational thought, as a symbol of the collective
insecurities of society, or, finally, as a representation of the psychological concept of the Oedipus
Complex - a theory that can be further substantiated through the exploration of The Blind
Minotaur series - as the labyrinth can represent the mother’s womb, and the minotaur the
curiosities and innate desires of the child, inserting the Minotaur into the confined archaic space
of the Suite Vollard implies an understanding of the notable psychoanalytic connotations that the
series would inevitably assume. The Minotaur, a symbol of extreme psychoanalytic interest, is
the main protagonist of our investigation, and one cannot disregard the direct role of Picasso’s
personal circumstances during the time of the monster’s creation, nor the subconscious ideas and
processes that may have driven the artist.
!
X. Gender and Sexuality: An examination of the Erotic Or In Fear of Death
Initially, it was the erotic dimension of the monster that was significant for Picasso. The
Minotaur was the fruit of the unnatural union between a woman and a bull, and his existence was
the result of the hubris that was committed against a god. In this body of work, Picasso translates
the sexual excesses of the man-eating monster of ancient myth not so much didactically as
poetically. The cannibalistic nature of his own love, incidentally, is described in a poetic text he
wrote in 1935, a year after the last Minotaur themed plate was completed. On 18 April 1935

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Picasso noted: “...I have had enough of the miracle of knowing nothing in this world and having
learnt nothing except to love things and to eat them alive…”28
!
Picasso’s consistent preoccupation with the minotaur in regard to his relationship with women
and men alike can be seen throughout the entirety of the Suite Vollard and in associated works of
the time. The Minotaur’s inner conflict between humanity and bestiality can also be discussed in
the light of Picasso’s own inner conflict of desiring a bloodthirsty, almost cannibalistic love, both
with the young and inexperienced Marie-Thérèse, whom he utterly consumed, and his wife,
Olga. The Minotaur plates range from the Minotaur calmly enjoying himself in the company of a
young woman, to observing her sleep, to him enticing the sculptor into intoxication and excess,
and they quickly degenerate into rape scenes, produced in May and June 1933.
!
Picasso thus presents the viewer with an intriguing dialectic that unfolds within the Minotaur.
The Minotaur’s birth was a product of King Minos’ hubris against the god Poseidon, who in
return forced Queen Pasiphae to fall in love with a bull and to mate with the animal. As half-
man, half-bull, the Minotaur incorporates the finest and the most terrible qualities of both man
and animal. As the son of a human woman, the Minotaur may act as a rational being. As the son
of an animal, there is little holding the Minotaur back from wreaking chaos and destruction. In
this context, the dynamics that co-exist inside the body of his experimental existence can be seen
as stimulating pictorial oppositions, where two antonymic poles are united. Friedrich Nietzsche

!30
in The Birth of Tragedy describes these antonymic poles as the Apollonian spirit and the
impulsive and instinctive Dionysian force. The Apollonian is based on reason and logical
thinking. By contrast, the Dionysian is based on chaos and appeals to the emotions, the urges and
the instincts. The content of all great tragedy is based on the tension created by the interplay
between these two, and the Minotaur’s tragedy is that he can neither escape nor deny either of
these forces.
!
The permanent ambivalence between good and evil, rational and irrational, human and bestial,
creates the space where Eros and Thanatos converse. Eros, the life-giving force that can elevate
the spirit, and Thanatos, the imminence of death and the inevitable punishment that follows
excess; both converse and co-exist within the Minotaur. By challenging the ability of logic and
rational thought to contain the Minotaur’s impulses, Picasso turns our attention to one of the
most archetypal fears of our existence: the fear of death. In the Vollard Suite the vigorous animal
nature of the Minotaur totally marginalizes its human components, thus stripping us of the
carefully constructed veil of civilization that we have used to cover our Pathos, and clearly
proposing the inevitability of death.
!
A brutal union of bodies in which men and women sometimes merge into hermaphrodites is
evident in a significant number of other works that Picasso created in the thirties. Although the
minotaur tales that Picasso is depicting in the Vollard Suite follow a strict narrative structure
compared to other graphic works of the same period, the rapid degeneration of images into fully
fleshed rape scenes suggest that Picasso was interested in the formal synthesis that takes place

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during the sexual act, when the participating bodies temporarily acquire a totally new
morphology, and in the composite images that are produced when various contrasting element
co-exist in the same pictorial plane. The entire Minotaur series is but the depiction of a
battleground of ideas, where the Minotaur’s internal conflict is only one of the problematics that
are being discussed. The relationship between the Minotaur and the Sculptor, the Minotaur and
the women that surround him, the youth who fights him in the arena and his audience are equally
emblematic. The Minotaur’s significance is a function of the place he occupies within the
complicated network of archetypal relations that the Suite’s characters have with each other.
!
The Minotaur’s arrival in the Suite was prepared in a sense by the presence of sculpted bulls in a
few of the earlier “Studio” scenes. In fact, a closer look of the Suite as a whole reveals numerous
interconnections between the various parts of the series. It appears, for example, that the
characters of plates 57 and 84, the sculptor and the bull/minotaur, simply exchanged roles, the
one transforming into the classically carved head, the other the much more animate Minotaur in
the process.
!
The Sculptor’s head, which in plate 57 is attached to the man’s body as he seems to solemnly
observe his taurine creation - a sculpture depicting a bull. In plate 84 the Sculptor’s head is
displaced to the back of the room and a bull’s grafted onto the body left behind. The Sculptor’s
head is blown out of proportion as it overlooks the scene as it is unfolding in the interior of the
room. The Minotaur, on the other hand, has partially assumed the role of the Sculptor. The effect
of this substitution is rendered more tangible in the relationship of the Minotaur to the model,

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and, in turn, in her relationship to the viewer of the print. Whilst in plate 57 the model’s gaze
aimed directly at the viewer, in this later scene the model is fully engaged with the Minotaur and
her connection with the viewer has shattered. Instead of encountering her gaze, in plate 84 we
see her spread legs and contorted pose. Where the Sculptor’s presence was characterized by his
detached and distant demeanor, the Minotaur is characterized by his intimate physical
relationships to the characters that surround him.
!
Through his brute physicality the Minotaur demonstrates his bodily strength and unravels the
web of his innermost impulses and urges. The Sculptor of The Sculptor’s Studio used his models
as sexual objects, but the sexual act is only implied and not depicted by Picasso. The act itself is
rather symbolically shown, and it assumes the form of the sculpture: the fruit of the union of the
artist and his model. Through the inspiration that his muse provides, the Sculptor is impregnated
with an idea which later forms into an art piece. Minotaur’s sexuality, on the other hand, is
sterile. Despite the fact that eight of The Minotaur plates depict coital or post-coital scenes, the
union of human woman and half-human animal has no product other than the relinquishment of
the sexual urge itself.
!
The appearance of a bacchanal satyr-looking man in plate 85 of The Minotaur series is
particularly notable. Both him and the Minotaur - an entity much more formidable in size and
scale - are extending their arms towards each other, in a way that suggests that they are making a
toast to their pleasure. The Minotaur’s extended arm and foot engulf the upper and lower part of
the image, thus placing all the involved parties inside an implied cave, where they can be

!33
subjects to The Minotaur’s whims and influence. The two women that partake in the scene are
attached to the two men and they appear to be rather insignificant if we examine the picture as a
whole. The time and attention that Picasso seems to had devoted to the two males is far more
extensive than the attention that the two women received, as it can be demonstrated by the
numerous formal details that decorate the bodies of the two men. The bodies of the two women
are simple outlines of their general figure. The arms of both have been placed near their faces,
perhaps as an indication of their effort to protect themselves and to regain some agency over the
events of the action, but the lack of detail in the main part of their bodies appears as a striking
opposition to the carefully constructed bodies of their male counterparts. The sheet upon which
the scene is unfolding is also constructed more carefully than the bodies of the two women, who
seem to be in the scene simply to illustrate how full of sexual pleasure the lives of the men are.
!
The Dionysian-looking figure of the man in plate 85 stares directly at the Minotaur, whose
taurine facial features prevent us from reading his thoughts. The positioning of his body,
however, reveals that he is satisfied. Another noteworthy element of the picture is the un-erect
state of the man’s sexual organ. In this highly erotic scene, one would expect the physicalities of
the participants to distinctly indicate sexual stimulation. Maybe in an attempt to truthfully follow
archaic sculptural forms, Picasso has chosen to not portray that stimulation. Another
interpretation of this phenomenon suggests that the mutual stare of the two men is indicative of a

!34
highly charged homoeroticism that is not explicitly declared. Both the man and the Minotaur
seem to be more engrossed in each other than they are in the women that accompany them. The
Plate 85 – Thames and Hudson!
mutual respect between them is evident, and the women of the scene appear to merely be
coincidental in the men’s attempt to show off their masculinity. Their utter disregard for the
viewer further strengthens this assumption. They stare at each other with interest and curiosity, in
a way that is almost an invitation to enjoy each other’s manhood. As their bodies face each other
their chest hair act symbolically as indicators of physical power and intellectual strength.
Rejoicing in their ability to host a Dionysian orgy, the two men share a mutual attraction.

!35
!
Another scene with serious symbolic implications can be observed in plate 89, where we see the
Minotaur at his weakest, as he has just fought a Theseus-like youth and has suffered a mortal
wound to his back. In the immediately previous plates the Minotaur’s muscular back is a sign of
physical strength and brute force. In plate 89, however, his back transforms into an Achilles’ heel
as it offers the necessary access that the young Theseus needs to exterminate the monster.
Wounded, the Minotaur kneels to the floor as the audience of this “bullfight” observes closely.
The beast’s death has become a spectacle. Amidst the audience members we recognize a familiar
face. The man from plate 85, who so lovingly admired the monster’s strength before, now
sorrowfully observes the scene. His hands, typically symbols of masculine strength, are held
down under the barricade that separates the audience from the arena, thus creating a striking
opposition to the previous scene, where his hands were on full view and used to hold his drink
and to forcefully hold on to the woman next to him.

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!
!
XI. Bad Hair Day
A story as ancient as that of the Minotaur is the story of Samson. According to the biblical
account, Samson - a precursor to Hercules - was assigned supernatural strength by God in order
to combat his enemies and perform heroic feats. Despite his divine strength, Samson had two
vulnerabilities; his attraction to untrustworthy women and his hair, without which he was
powerless. These vulnerabilities ultimately proved fatal for him, as the loss of his hair signaled
the loss of his power and his defeat. Hair traditionally symbolizes physical strength and virility.
Most Mediterranean cultures have mythologies that incorporate the significance of hair and the
dangers associated with the loss thereof. Hair is a symbol of instinct, of female seduction and
physical attraction. Baldness may suggest sterility and weakness, whilst the unwilling removal of
hair may be a symbol of castration. Hair often carries the context of magical powers, including
its relation with fertility and potency.
!
In the conversation with Francoise Gilot that was previously mentioned in this essay, regarding
one of the Minotaur plates, Picasso stated: “He is studying her, trying to read her thoughts; trying
to decide whether she loves him because he is a monster. {...} Women are odd enough for that,
you know. {...} It’s hard to tell whether he wants to wake her or kill her.” Then, Picasso turned to
another plate: “You’ll notice that wherever there are orgies, there are beards. That’s the sculptors:

!37
warm flesh in one hand, cool champagne on the other ”. Here, Picasso himself points to the role29
of hair in the Vollard Suite, and associates the appearance of bearded men with orgies and
pleasure. In a series that is so patently devoted to the exploration of instinctually raw sexuality, it
is crucial to examine the conscious and unconscious ways that Picasso exercised in order to fully
absorb the symbolical power of hair, in our effort to further understand the motivations behind
the creation of The Minotaur.
!
Hair seems to assume a particularly significant role in The Minotaur, as both the life and the
death of the monster - and thereof his strength and virility - seem to be interconnected with the
existence of body hair on his body, and on the bodies of those around him. In plate 83, the
Minotaur calmly proposes a toast, as the young woman who accompanies him questioningly
stares outwardly - either towards the Minotaur or towards the viewer. The scene is relatively
peaceful and humane; there are few traces of the monstrous part of the Minotaur, and if it weren’t
for the taurine head and the tail that faces the viewer, this Minotaur could easily pass for a man.
Although the woman is naked, there is little pictorial evidence to suggest that the two were
engaging in a sexual
encounter, nor that such an
encounter is imminent. Their
nakedness seems to bear
little connection to sexual

!38
desire, and, naturally, the appearance of body hair on either party is very limited. Picasso
proposes the Minotaur’s human side by reducing the amount of fur that is covering his body, and
the complete absence of violence or threat in the scene attest to this conclusion.
!
One of the most distinctive evolutionary changes as humans parted company from their fellow
apes was their loss of body hair, and the Minotaur in plate 83 has little to show of his animalistic
side. Picasso seems to associate body hair with agency, and as the scenes depicted degenerate
into rape scenes, body hair increases. In plate 84, the steady transition of the Minotaur from the
human to his animal side has begun, and his body is suddenly covered in hair. Spread throughout
his legs and hands, the amorphous lines that represent his hair merge and repel each other, as he
captivates one of the women. The woman’s hair partially merge with the Minotaur’s fur, but her
helpless body - not strong enough to resist the will of the monster - is hairless and fragile, as her
breasts and genitalia appear in full view. Plate 85 continues the pattern of steadily increasing the
presence of body hair, as the story unfolds and deepens. Plate 86 presents an interesting reversal
in the agency of the participants. The Minotaur is now asleep, and his head is hidden from view,
as a decorated transparent curtain hangs in front of him and covers his face. Next to him sits a
young woman, who somberly examines the sleeping monster. The curved lines that functioned as
body hair have now been straightened, and they have transformed into shadows that cover
various parts of her body. Her neck, her jaw, her arm and lower chest have been carved with
distinct persistence and intensity, thus adorning her body with a new gravitas. The physical
strength of the monster remains greater than that of the woman’s, but the implied fragility of
sleep disturbs the power relation between the two. Plate 87 is in conversation with plate 86, as

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the Minotaur has woken up and is fiercely attacking a woman. The woman, however, is not
entirely human either, as upon examination of her lower body we see that instead of human legs
she has the body of a mare. Battles between bulls and horses, or Minotaurs and horses are
common in Picasso’s work, but this particular rape scene seems to be an answer to the regained
agency of the young woman in the previous scene. Whether the Minotaur is seeking revenge, or
his brutal animal instincts have surfaced uncontrollably we cannot know for certain. As the
bucolic serenity of the archaic looking sceneries of the first plates is dispersing, however, the hair
!

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!
motif reappears. The Minotaur’s hair now extends beyond his physical body, and it seems to
encompass the entire plate. Amidst the chaos and the destruction, power equals pain.
!
The Minotaur meets his fate in plate 88, when he is suddenly transported to the space of an
ancient Roman arena or a Spanish bullring. As he kneels to the ground, he is unprecedentedly
weak and distressed. His hair is no longer dark carvings, but rather large stone-like circular
formations, that are more reminiscent of bones than of actual hair. In plate 89 we first encounter
the reason for the Minotaur’s plight. A young man, wholesome as he is proper, has inflicted the
mortal wound on the monster’s back. Amidst the crowd - comprised of women and men of
various ages - we recognize the Bacchanal man from plate 85. His arms, powerfully toasting to
his pleasure while managing to hold on to a young woman, are now hidden under the wall that
separates the scene of the killing with the audience. His beard, a sign of manliness and
aggressive sexual energy, is also half-hidden, and he appears to be small and insignificant, as a
confounded expression of grief and surprise takes over his face. The sight of the death of the
Minotaur challenges the very basis of his existence and his perception of the world, and for that
reason he disappears in plate 90, where the Minotaur’s strength has metamorphosed into
weakness, and his then powerful howl has now turned into a final gesture of anguish and grief.
!
XII. By a Show of Hands
Plate 90 is of particular significance on our journey to analyze The Minotaur, as it portrays the
immediate aftermath that follow the monster’s mortal injury. Striving for breath, the half-man,

!41
half-bull hybrid raises his head and looks upwards. He is holding his chest; presumably in an
attempt to alleviate or to make sense of the pain he is experiencing. His friend, the satyr, has now
disappeared from the scene, and what remains is a group of women’s heads, who angrily stare at
the monster. The expression on the women’s faces suggests that they are satisfied with the
Minotaur’s suffering. Perhaps as an act of revenge, they show no willingness to help him during
his final moments. Cruel as they are austere, these five women rejoice in Theseus’ win against
the monster.
There is, however, one exception. A sixth woman, positioned on the upper left margin of the
scene, is reaching towards the center of the frame, where the Minotaur is close to dying. Using
her right hand as support, she is reaching for the monster’s back with her left hand. Her facial
expression does not indicate that she is revengeful towards him; she is rather compassionate. She
is neither distraught for the Minotaur’s inevitable loss, nor resentful and spiteful against him. Her
hand gesture suggests that her effort to alleviate his pain is sincere. She is not fearful of the
monster; besides, at this point in his story, the Minotaur appears rather small in scale and
fortitude.
!
The compassion scheme continues in plate 91, where the Minotaur is lying in bed with the
woman, in a loving embrace. The woman is directly staring at the viewer, as the Minotaur holds
on to the necklace he is wearing. This necklace is an object that we have not seen in any of the
previous plates, and the ritualistic hold that the Minotaur has on it suggests that it might have
particular significance for him. As humans are the only species that form emotional attachments
to decorative objects, the act of the Minotaur holding on to a necklace assumes an entirely

!42
different meaning. In this scene, the Minotaur seems to be reflecting on his past. Presumably
during his final moments (plate 90), the Minotaur remembers his past experiences and reflects on
their significance in plates 91-93. Plate 90 appears to be a reimagining of plate 83, as plate 92 is
a reimagining of plate 85. Finally, plate 93 is formally similar to plate 86, although the roles
seem to have reversed. All three of the memory plates are reminiscent of previous scenes of the
Suite, but their dream-like quality suggests that they are not depicted on real time, but they rather
play the role of memories, or symbolically represent the various stages of the Minotaur’s nature:
the human, the demi-divine and the bestial. These plates are symptomatic of the Minotaur’s
demise, and they serve little purpose other than to assist the Minotaur transition to catharsis
through death.
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XIII. Synopsis: The End of the Minotaur?
The use of the Minotaur as a multiple identification figure in Picasso’s work is echoed in a
special way in the Vollard Suite, where Picasso’s ascends the typical play of roles that artists
assign to their characters into a powerful interactive space, where the concept of masculinity,
femininity, agency, love, death and redemption engage in a contest of power and prominence.
The monster envisioned by Picasso, this twofold entity or unified duality, is reminiscent of
Arthur Rimbaud’s famous dictum: “JE est un autre”, as the essence of modern self-alienation.
The figural condensation of a hybrid or “mixte”, as Marc le Bot calls it, also implies a certain
degree of self-denial and an attempt for redemption through transformation. In this dialectical
structure of relations, it is uncertain if Picasso wished to unveil or encode his innermost fears,
desires and projections.

!43
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For Picasso, the Minotaur was, from the point of view of form as well as content, a variable
figure, in fragile equilibrium, that could sometimes embody the dominance of animal instincts
and sometimes that of anthropomorphic traits. The ambiguous and fluctuating morphology of the
legendary creature tempted Picasso to indulge in travesties of form and meaning. The fate of the
monster is tragic: either he is killed by Theseus inside the dark, convoluted passages of the
Labyrinth, or he is slayed in the bullfighting arena by an ancient matador, whose purpose is to
rid of the monsters in a ritual that repeats itself eternally. Did Picasso recognize death as the only
accessible gateway towards redemption and catharsis, or is he proposing excess as the only
possible antidote to the inevitability of it? Is the Minotaur symbolic of the ever-turning circle of
life that consumes our bodies and returns them as matter to the earth, or is he simply the memory
of our bestial past? These are some of the questions that the Vollard Suite is posing, and that a
great amount of scholarship, including this essay, is attempting to answer. It is not our purpose to
argue for a solid and specific response, but rather to encourage the readers to embark on their
own journey towards understanding the Minotaur. This is not the end, but rather the beginning of
an exploration.
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XIV. Bibliography
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Bataille, Georges. The Big Toe (1929). Trans Stoekl, Allan. Excerpted from the book Visions of
Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939, Minneapolis: UMP, 1985.
!
Bolliger, Hans. Picasso’s Vollard Suite. Trans. Guterman, Norbert. Thames and Hudson. USA.
1985.
!
Brown, Jonathan. Picasso and the Spanish Tradition of Painting. Yale University Press. USA.
!
Cowling, Elizabet; Richardson, John; Widmaier-Picasso, Diana. Picasso and Marie-Thérèse:
L’Amour Fou (Exhibition Catalogue). Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., in association with
Gagosian Gallery. USA. 2011.
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Esteban Leal, Paloma. Picasso/Minotauro. Actar/Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia
and Aldeasa, 2001.
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Florman, Lisa. Myth and Metamorphosis: Picasso Classical Prints of the 1930s. The MIT Press,
Cambridge, MA. London, England. 2002.
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Fry, Edward. Picasso Speaks. Cubism. Oxford University Press. Oxford, England. 1978.
!
Gilot, Francoise and Lake, Carlton. Life with Picasso. Barcelona, Editorial Bruguera, S.A., 1965.
!
Hohl, Reinhold. C.G. Jung on Picasso (and Joyce). Notes in the History of Art. Vol. 3, No. 1.
The University of Chicago Press. 1983.
!
Johnson, Stanley. Pablo Picasso: Works on Paper – Historical Perspectives. R. S. Johnson Fine
Art; Stated First Edition. 2004.
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Montanelli, Indro. Historia de los griegos. Barcelona, Plaza & Jañes Editores, S.A., 1995.
!
Ocaña, Maria Teresa. Picasso and the Bulls. Picasso. The Love and the Anguish. The road to
Guernica. Kyoto, The National Museum of Modern Art, October 31-December 17, 1995 //
Tokyo, Tobu Museum of Art, December 23, 1995-March 10, 1996. !
!
Sikes, A. William. The Psychological Roots of Modernism: Picasso and Jung. Routledge. UK.
2015.
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Sircoulomb-Müller, Valérie-Anne. The Minotaur and Minotauromachy or In Search of an Alter
Ego in Picasso’s Imaginary Labyrinth (Private Mythology - Surrealism). Pablo Picasso and
Marie-Thérèse: Between Classicism and Surrealism. Edit. Müller, Markus. Kerber Verlag.
Germany. 2004. !
!
Steinberg, Leo. The Philosophical Brothel. October Vol. 44. The MIT Press. USA. 1988
!

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Whitelaw, T.D. Collecting Classical cities: prospects and problems. Archaeological Survey and
the City. Edit. Johnson, Paul. Oxbow Books. Oxford, England. 2012.
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