PLATE XVIII
Europe and the Bull
The painter has as it were photographed Europe and her companions caressing the bull at the moment just before the creature leaped into the sea. The group of figures is shown against a rocky and partly wooded hillside, and not in a meadow, as the myth would lead one to expect. The round column in the centre is apparently sacred in character, while the square pillar and the water-jar at the right may mark a fountain at which the maidens have been drawing water. A narrow strip of pale blue along the lower edge of the picture symbolizes the proximity of the sea. From a Pompeian wall-painting (Hermann-Bruckmann, Denkmäler der Malerei des Altertums, No. 68). See p. 60.
