Originating in Greek myth and popularized in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the tale of the Rape of Europa has captivated audiences for centuries. Finding himself infatuated with the Phoenician princess Europa, Zeus, king of the gods, transforms himself into a bull in order to seduce her. He joins a herd of her father’s cattle grazing by the seashore, and the princess, attracted to friendly and gentle creature, comes over to sit with him. She eventually climbs playfully onto his back, at which moment Zeus bolts into the sea, dragging Europa helplessly across the waves to the island of Crete where he proceeds to ravish her. She then gives birth to Minos, the first king of the island, who establishes the Minoan civilization.

As a young man in 1953, Fernando Botero traveled to Europe to study the work of the Old Masters, finding himself particularly taken with the artists of the Italian Renaissance. Among their work, one finds that the Rape of Europa was a popular subject, depicted most famously in Titian’s 1559-62 painting of the same name (Fig. 1). In Titian’s version, Europa is portrayed as completely powerless, clinging desperately to the bull’s horns while her companions wave frantically from the shore. Distressed and afraid of falling prey to the sea monster in the foreground, Europa finds herself relying on her captor for survival, her helplessness reiterated by her theatrical recline.

Botero added his own interpretation to this canon in 1992, casting a monumental bronze sculpture depicting Europa and the bull in his signature inflated forms. At that t.mes , Botero had been working with sculpture for close to twenty years, his first experimenting with the medium in the early 1970s. Because it allowed him to realize the full expression of his signature aesthetic, bronze quickly became an essential part of his artistic practice. He explained in 1977:

With the inflated forms developed in his paintings transposed into three-dimensional works, Botero was able to place his characters into immediate dialogue with the viewer and remove them from the static context of his graphic work. By extension, the artist could also emphasize the characters’ personalities, their existence in space inherently asserting the possibility of his “new reality.” Indeed, particularly in Botero’s works which reimagine key moments from Western history, the sculptures’ grand scale and exaggerated physicality lend weight to his alternative interpretations of established motifs.

With the inflated forms developed in his paintings transposed into three-dimensional works, Botero was able to place his characters into immediate dialogue with the viewer and remove them from the static context of his graphic work. By extension, the artist could also emphasize the characters’ personalities, their existence in space inherently asserting the possibility of his “new reality.” Indeed, particularly in Botero’s works which reimagine key moments from Western history, the sculptures’ grand scale and exaggerated physicality lend weight to his alternative interpretations of established motifs.

Unlike previous artistic renditions, the present sculpture is a direct subversion of Ovid’s tale. While Titian and his classical successors depict the abduction in progress, this Europa is stationary, holding herself upright with back straight and head held high. Instead of exuding weakness and fear, Europa’s posture is proud and seductive. Empowered by her nudity, her curvaceous body dominates that of her abductor as she blithely surveys her surroundings. Standing before the sculpture, there is no doubt that it is the coquettish Europa who commands the scene, carried along by the amiable bull.