Europa and the Bull
c. 1845
Oil on canvas
Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Bequest of Charles Phelps and Anna Sinton Taft

She plac’d herself upon his back, and rode
O’er fields and meadows, seated on the God.
He gently march’d along, and by degrees
Left the dry meadow and approach’d the seas…
Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1st century A.D.

A hazy, golden atmosphere illuminates the shore as maidens wave goodbye to Europa. In the distance, Europa rides on the back of Jupiter, who is disguised as a white bull crossing the dark sea. Europa and the Bull is one of ten unfinished oil paintings that Joseph Mallord William Turner based on a series of prints that he made in 1807-1819. These paintings were not exhibited until 1880, nearly thirty years after Turner’s death. In his representation of this Classical myth, Turner experiments with new ideas about light, color and subject matter.

Myth:
From Mt. Olympus, Zeus spied the beautiful maiden Europa and instantly fell in love with her. Disguising himself as a majestic bull, he joined a group of grazing cows in the meadow where Europa and her maidens were picking flowers. Europa was amazed by the way that this bull acted more like a than an animal, and she placed a garland of flowers on his horns and sat on his broad back. Suddenly, he began running and carried her across the sea to Crete, where he revealed his true identity and made her queen of the island. Europa’s fame lives on through the name of the continent Europe and the bull’s image remains in the sky as the constellation Taurus.