The Abduction of Europa (Il Ratto d’Europa) is Italian artist MP5′s latest mural painted recently in Saint Chamond, France inspired by the myth, but expressed in her own particular way.
MP5’s work is characterised by a clear balance between narrative and the comic-like look of her drawings that also transfers to her walls. Whites and blacks that deep and relentless feed off each other, thick lines and soft shapes that search for the essential in the form. This is the case of this new mural that, inspired by the myth of the abduction of Europa, the symbolism behind it.
According to the traditional Hellenistic myth, Zeus transformed himself into a beautiful white bull to seduce the Tyrean maiden Europa. The moment she climbed onto his back, he carried her across the sea to the isle of Crete. Beneath a willow tree, Zeus dispensed with his bull aspect and ravished the nymph. Thus, Europa gave birth to Minos, who eventually became king of Crete.
But for this occasion Mp5 decided to focus on a less known and much older Minoan myth that depicts the image of a nymph being ravaged by an eagle. Having in consideration that Zeus was the god of the sky as well as ruler of the Olympian gods, is not difficult to understand that he also has been pictured as an eagle.
Author: Fran
Founder and editor of Urbanite. Street Art lover who after the finishing her MA thesis on the Mexican and Norwegian muralist movement in the 1920-50s, developed a fascination for street art and graffiti that eventually led to collaborations with different art blogs, including the creation of this one.
