:: 2010 :: 120cm x 60cm :: Acrylics, Inks & Markers on Canvas ::
The myth of the Rape of Europa is essentially a post-Minoan tale: here, shorn of all the later Greek garblings is the original Minoan moment of union, in which the woman is in primary control. No depiction of rape is visible in Minoan archaeology, no image of the domination of man over woman. But women riding bulls is quite common: the rape, then, becomes a Greek corruption to what was essentially a transcendent tale of fertile union between woman and man, between the goddess and her animals. Minos-Asterion (see my recent essay Minoan Honey: The Bull, The Mushroom And The Mistress Of the Dance) as the spring bull of Taurus guides Europa the broad-faced Moon across the heavens: there is an astronomical dimension to this story which is not visible in the violent version which the Greeks bequeathed us, and we find ourselves before another role of the sacred untouched but fertile Europa: mistress of animals.
