Europa in the 20th century

In this last in my series of posts on the theme of Europa and the bull (previously in the 15th and 16th centuries, in the 17th century, and in the 18th and 19th centuries), I'll be looking at the first half of the 20th century. With the advent of the European Common Market, now the European Union, in the second half of the century Europa has become a very popular theme, quite impossible to cover fully.












Our first two pictures are pre-WWI. The Europa on the left is by Felix Valloton (1908), now in Berne's Kunstmuseum (but not on their website). The Russian painter Valentin Serov produced the painting of Europa on the right in 1910 (now in Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery (note: even using an online machine translation the text is informative and interesting)). (pictures in the public domain, left via Museum Syndicate, right via wikimedia commons)



In the inter-war years Lili Finzelberg produced this bronze sculpture of Europa and the Bull in 1928, now in Bremerhaven's Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum (not on their website). Matisse painted an Abduction of Europa in 1929, now in the National Gallery of Australia. (picture by Hannes Grobe copied from wikimedia commons under Creative Commons Share Alike 2.5 licence)