Michael Ayrton
Minotaur Revealed, 1971
etching
52 x 73 cm
Sold
MICHAEL AYRTON’S TEXT WHICH ACCOMPANIES HIS MINOTAUR SUITE ETCHINGS (1971) ASTERION WAS THUS BORN, CONSECRATED, MAZED AND ISOLATED. RISING HE FOUND HIMSELF PART MAN, PENT UP. REVEALED HE SAW HIMSELF...
MICHAEL AYRTON’S TEXT WHICH ACCOMPANIES HIS MINOTAUR SUITE ETCHINGS (1971)
ASTERION WAS THUS BORN, CONSECRATED, MAZED AND ISOLATED. RISING HE FOUND HIMSELF PART MAN, PENT UP. REVEALED HE SAW HIMSELF ALONE, PART BULL. FALLEN, IN DARKNESS, HE YET ENDURES.
The Suite charts not only the life of the Minotaur from the womb, but also his many manifestations: as Embryo, Calf, Consecrated, Yearling, Full Grown, Rising, Risen, Pent, Revealed … and finally Alone.
(below adapted from Michael Ayrton – A Biography by Justine Hopkins (Ayrton’s step-grandaughter), published Andre Deutsch 1994;
Ch. 23: Mazes, Mirrors and Minotaurs – 1970-1973
But if the Minotaur had taken the bitterness out of his response to Picasso, Michael was, by 1971, no nearer escaping from the potent relationship which he had developed with ‘that mythical creature, more than half god, more than half bull’ … … he kept coming back to do ‘just one more bloody Minotaur’. Elisabeth too learned that although he might ‘maintain … that he had said all he had to say about the Minotaur, he couldn’t get away from him: he always drew or sculpted one more.’
By 1971 drawing and sculpture were no longer enough, and he was stimulated to take up a discipline he had not practised since his student days at Heatherley’s; in the exacting processes of etching he found the perfect medium in which to express the frustrations of the Minotaur, and the ten prints which make up the Minotaur Suite represent an autobiography of their subject … told visually and not verbally because the Minotaur has no power of speech and ‘cannot think clearly about himself, nor understand where he is or why. His condition must be narrated by some displaced voice which comes both from outside the labyrinth and yet inhabits it.’ That voice Michael supplied, recreating with his needle the stark world of the labyrinth, which has no colour, but only the shades of grey between the absolutes of black and white, and no spaces save those bounded by the curving walls of the mazing tunnels.
The completed Suite was shown for the first time at the Bruton Gallery exhibition in October (1973), where it proved tremendously popular, and a large number of separate etchings were sold, a contingency Michael had provided for by arranging that a certain number of sets from the complete edition could be broken up for the purpose. He always preferred however, to sell complete sets, not only for obvious commercial reasons, but also because he felt that the story should be told in full, as a novel might be read, not represented by random chapters.
And he was still not free of his own compulsive identification. He continued to sculpt them; Minotaur Waking emerged, unusually modelled in clay rather than wax, and possibly the most immediately appealing of all the many versions. Hence its edition sold out quickly, whilst the comparative strangeness of its companion Sleeping Minotaur (a surreal head and half-torso) meant sales were rare.
ASTERION WAS THUS BORN, CONSECRATED, MAZED AND ISOLATED. RISING HE FOUND HIMSELF PART MAN, PENT UP. REVEALED HE SAW HIMSELF ALONE, PART BULL. FALLEN, IN DARKNESS, HE YET ENDURES.
The Suite charts not only the life of the Minotaur from the womb, but also his many manifestations: as Embryo, Calf, Consecrated, Yearling, Full Grown, Rising, Risen, Pent, Revealed … and finally Alone.
(below adapted from Michael Ayrton – A Biography by Justine Hopkins (Ayrton’s step-grandaughter), published Andre Deutsch 1994;
Ch. 23: Mazes, Mirrors and Minotaurs – 1970-1973
But if the Minotaur had taken the bitterness out of his response to Picasso, Michael was, by 1971, no nearer escaping from the potent relationship which he had developed with ‘that mythical creature, more than half god, more than half bull’ … … he kept coming back to do ‘just one more bloody Minotaur’. Elisabeth too learned that although he might ‘maintain … that he had said all he had to say about the Minotaur, he couldn’t get away from him: he always drew or sculpted one more.’
By 1971 drawing and sculpture were no longer enough, and he was stimulated to take up a discipline he had not practised since his student days at Heatherley’s; in the exacting processes of etching he found the perfect medium in which to express the frustrations of the Minotaur, and the ten prints which make up the Minotaur Suite represent an autobiography of their subject … told visually and not verbally because the Minotaur has no power of speech and ‘cannot think clearly about himself, nor understand where he is or why. His condition must be narrated by some displaced voice which comes both from outside the labyrinth and yet inhabits it.’ That voice Michael supplied, recreating with his needle the stark world of the labyrinth, which has no colour, but only the shades of grey between the absolutes of black and white, and no spaces save those bounded by the curving walls of the mazing tunnels.
The completed Suite was shown for the first time at the Bruton Gallery exhibition in October (1973), where it proved tremendously popular, and a large number of separate etchings were sold, a contingency Michael had provided for by arranging that a certain number of sets from the complete edition could be broken up for the purpose. He always preferred however, to sell complete sets, not only for obvious commercial reasons, but also because he felt that the story should be told in full, as a novel might be read, not represented by random chapters.
And he was still not free of his own compulsive identification. He continued to sculpt them; Minotaur Waking emerged, unusually modelled in clay rather than wax, and possibly the most immediately appealing of all the many versions. Hence its edition sold out quickly, whilst the comparative strangeness of its companion Sleeping Minotaur (a surreal head and half-torso) meant sales were rare.