A painting of danger and menace… ‘The Minotaur,’ by George Frederic Watts, 1885, Tate Britain, London #arttiktok #arthistory #painting #greekmythology #arthistorytiktok

Can you spot the small bird in this painting? There it is, being crushed under the fist of the painting's main subject. And what if I told you that this small bird tells us everything we need to know about the painting and its protagonist? Painted by George Fredric Watts in 1885, the minotaur depicts the half-man, half-bull creature from Greek mythology, who, according to one common version of the myth, every nine years awaited the arrival of seven sacrificial youths and seven sacrificial maidens, sent by ship from Athens to Crete where he lived, to be consumed by him within the labyrinth. Here, he leans over the corner of a balcony, perhaps the edge of his labyrinth, gazing out to see eagerly awaiting the arrival of his prey. What we can see of his left eye, wide and alert, suggests that he has spotted something. And indeed, in the far left of the painting, we see a white sailboat, barely visible, traversing the sea. His future victims in transit, his mouth is open, and his tail can be seen flicking with excitement. And from the back, his powerful musculature, heavily emphasized by Watts, creates a feeling of unease. The murky sky creates a sense of foreboding, its hue casting shades of red on his body that seemed to hint at violence to come. Then we come back to the bird, who screams in pain under the weight of the minotaur's fist. It acts as a metaphor for purity and innocence, and its current predicament tells us that pain and destruction are to come, filling us with dread and making us deeply uncomfortable with the minotaur's excitement. And the most disturbing part may be that he barely seems aware of it, a detail that highlights his destructive impulse. Watts allegedly painted this work quickly, in a single morning, following the publication of an article by William Thomas Stead in 1885, that exposed the exploitation of young Victorian girls in London, and that drew comparisons to the myth of the minotaur in order to do so. At the painting's first exhibition, Watts stated that he wanted to hold up to data station, the B-steel, and brutal.