In an attempt to encourage British painters to produce large-scale works for the Festival of Britain, the Arts Council offered them free materials and enormous canvases. The idea was to promote ambitious, heroic painting after the wartime period of shortages and rationing. Vaughan submitted Theseus and the Minotaure , the largest picture he ever painted, aside from his publically commissioned murals. He described the painting in the following terms:
The first thing to say about the painting was that it was wrongly titled owing to my lack of classicalscholarship. I was under the impression that Minos was an island instead of the name of the king. Thepainting should be called ‘ Theseus’ or ‘ Theseus and the Minotaure’ . It was suggested by André Gide’ s novelThésée in which the minotaure is depicted not as the horned monster of classical anthropology but as a misunderstood youth who spends his time in the labyrinth eating pomegranates and picking petals off flowers.
(Keith Vaughan, letter, quoted in Hepworth, Keith Vaughan the Mature Oils , Sansom & Co., 2012)
The Classical Myth:
In the Homeric myth, King Minos was the powerful ruler of ancient Crete. To sanction his authority and confirm his legitimacy to rule he prayed to Poseidon to send him a sign. This came in the form of a white bull rising from the waves. Minos did not sacrifice it to Poseidon, as instructed, but substituted another and kept the prized animal. As punishment Poseidon cursed him by having his wife Queen Pasiphae fall in love with the bull. She became pregnant and gave birth to a halfman, half-bull creature – the Minotaur. Minos ordered his architect Daedalus to construct a series of labyrinthine corridors beneath his palace at Knossos in which to imprison the monster.
Minos went on to defeat the Athenians after a drawn-out military dispute. As tribute King Aegeus was forced, every nine years, to deliver up seven young men and seven young women to be sacrificed to the Minotaur. On the third occasion his son Theseus volunteered as one of the victims, undertaking to slay the Minotaur. When he arrived in Crete he met Ariadne, daughter of Minos and they fell in love. She gave him a ball of twine to unravel as he set off into the labyrinth. After a fearsome battle Theseus slayed the Minotaur and, aided by the twine, was able to navigate his way back to Ariadne. They escaped Crete together, sailing to the island of Naxos where Theseus later abandoned her.
André Gide’ s Narrative:
While preparing Theseus and the Minotaure Vaughan turned to French literature for inspiration rather than illustrate the much-visited ancient legend. André Gide, one of his favourite writers, published his final novel Thésée in 1946, having worked on it for over two decades. Vaughan read this reimagined version in French and based his painting on Gide’ s post-Freudian interpretation.
For him the Minotaur represented a fatal, self-absorbing beauty whose destructive allure was completely irresistible. He transposed the Minotaur, usually conceived as violent and murderous, to symbolise the principle of self-destruction – the monster within us all. Theseus has to engage in a battle with himself, therefore, before escaping the labyrinth. His conflict is not so much with the Minotaur, but a struggle for his soul against his inner self-monster and the forces of luxurious indulgence. The labyrinth, in Gide’ s conception, is an internal prison of one’ s own devising, the walls and corridors of which are buried deep within the self. These are filled with such pungent narcotics, one never feels the urge to escape.
Vaughan’ s Interpretation:
Two years after the publication of Thésée Vaughan visited Paris and had a brief affair with a young man called Karlo. His journal states that on his return Vaughan felt trapped inside his own internal labyrinth, caught between self-indulgence and futile attempts to work:
August 14, 1948:
Treasure the memory of Karlo – his debonair grace – his laughter, his frank lust, his beauty, his fantasticsordid, tiny room in the roof – stairs – naked lamps – labyrinth of corridors – pitch black – holding hishand like Ariadne stumbling after Theseus. Very much a slave now to vice, to sexual lusts, increasing complication of solitary gratification. Paralysis of will, imagination, action. Sit for hours in my studioblocked by noise of traffic, crescendo, decrescendo – like soft repeating whip lashes over my raw brain.
Hands bleed from clawing the smooth hard surface for a hold. I become aware of this growing sense of doom which has been going on for a year or more. Almost as though I were under the sentence of death.
Theseus:
Theseus appears in the heart of the labyrinth, having negotiated its passageways. He is emerging into a light-filled room silhouetted against the blackness of the doorway. He stands, head bowed and arms open, as though offering himself as a sacrificial victim. At first his pose and attitude might seem puzzlingly submissive, since his traditional motive for having arrived here is to slay the Minotaur. But in Gide’ s conception he is also here to slay the self-monster. Vaughan describes him in a grey-buff colour, slightly darker than the other figures, reminding us of Gide’ s words:
‘The colour of truth is grey.’ He is psychologically removed from the other two figures and mentally prepares himself for his ordeal.
Ariadne:
Ariadne, emotionally detached from both Thesues and the Minotaur, does not turn towards her lover as he arrives. She stares abstractedly at something undisclosed outside the realm of the painting. This might be explained in the following way. In both the classical myth and in Gide’ s interpretation Ariadne should be in the palace of Minos, awaiting Theseus. Vaughan employs continuous narrative and expects the viewer to accept that he is simultaneously representing her and the others within the same physical space. This was a common pictorial convention of the Quattrocento narrative painters that Vaughan so admired. She is naked, vulnerable and crosslegged. Her self-embracing pose, twitching toes and neurotic stare communicate her anxiety. Perhaps she has prescience, in the manner of the Virgin Mary in Renaissance paintings, of her forthcoming sadness – of how she will be abandoned by Theseus. Alternatively, Vaughan’ s journal entry of 1948 implies that he understood Ariadne to have followed Theseus through the labyrinth and, given his uncertain grasp of the original myth, has included her in the scene.
The Minotaur:
The Minotaur of antiquity is traditionally depicted in Western art as a fearsome, tormented beast, half-man and half bull, complete with horns, hair and hooves. His rapacious, blood-thirsty nature made him one of the most formidable creatures of Greek mythology. In Vaughan’ s characterization he represents the allure of physical beauty and pleasure, in accordance with Gide’ s narrative. His narcissistic, open pose displays his athletic proportions and genitalia and reveals a character used to languorous, pleasure-seeking pursuits. He yawns and stretches, invincible and irresistible in his all-consuming world of hedonism. Lying on the floor before him is a pomegranate, a lemon and discarded petals torn from flowers in his indolent ennui . The figure is based on Vaughan’ s Reclining Nude , 1950, painted around this time. Even the lemon is retained in the composition.
Vaughan made a series of pencil studies to work out the figural arrangements and treatment of the complex space. The bed on which the Minotaur reclines, for example, is viewed from several anglessimultaneously in accordance with Cubist principles. Furthermore, the consistent tilting and flattening of form creates a stage-like setting, intentionally theatrical and stylized. The artificiality of this pictorial space has to support both the presence of Ariadne in the palace, and the presence of Theseus and the Minotaur in the labyrinth. Similarly Vaughan’ s palette is un-naturalistically muted with only a few accents of colour provided by the blue sheet and the discarded fruits on the floor. The dark, claustrophobic atmosphere creates a sense of foreboding and assists in emphasizing the pale fleshy tones of the figures. A naturalistic treatment could not have been further from Vaughan’ s intention:
September, 1963:
All art is artifact, artificial, unreal. A parody of reality. Reality is simply the fleeting pain or joy that is inside you, which vanishes as soon as you try to refine it in shape or word. That is why all talk of realism in art is nonsense. Reality may be implied, intended, hinted at, even glimpsed, but never revealed or stated.
Vaughan admired Gide as both a writer and a man. He identified with him as a creative spirit and shared with him similar philosophical attitudes as well as sexual tastes. There is a passage that seems prophetic when we apply it to Vaughan:
I face death alone willingly. I’ ve tasted the best of life. It is pleasing to me to think that after I am gone, thanks
to me, mankind will be happier, better and freer. For the benefit of future man, I created my work. I lived.