Minotaur with dead horse in front of a cave facing a girl in veil 1936

Picasso made this watercolour, ink, and paper piece, called 'Minotaur with dead horse in front of a cave facing a girl in veil', with delicate, washy strokes. This piece is all about process, really; it's like watching Picasso think out loud, letting the images emerge, ghostly and translucent, from the paper. The materiality here is light, almost ethereal. The thin washes of watercolor create a sense of depth and shadow, while the dark ink defines the minotaur's features. Look at the way the white of the paper shows through, giving a sense of luminosity, especially in the dead horse. It's both there and not there, solid and spectral. The minotaur's hand, raised in a gesture of warning or defense, is so expressive, so full of emotion. This echoes Picasso's earlier, more classically inspired works, but with a raw, almost brutal energy, foreshadowing his later, more fragmented style. It reminds me a little of Goya's dark, psychological depths, but with that very particular Picasso twist. It's a space where the past and future, the beautiful and the monstrous, all come together, unresolved.